Human induced pluripotent stem cell-technology to study the effects of human cytomegalovirus infection on neural differentiation

ABSTRACT: Congenital human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infection is one of the leading prenatal causes of mental retardation and congenital deformities world-wide. Access to cultured human neuronal lineages, necessary to understand the species specific pathogenic effects of HCMV has been limited by difficulties in sustaining primary cultures. Neuronal cells derived from human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells now provide a novel opportunity to investigate HCMV pathogenesis. We derived iPS cells from human adult fibroblasts and induced neural lineages to investigate their permissiveness to infection with HCMV strain Ad169. Analysis of iPS cells and nearly pure populations of iPS-derived neural stem cells (NSCs), neuroprogenitor cells (NPCs) and neurons suggests that (i) iPS cells are not permissive to HCMV infection; (ii) Neural stem cells have impaired differentiation when infected by HCMV; (iii) NPCs are fully permissive for HCMV infection; the supernatant from infected neural stem cells and NPCs (but not mock infected cells) induced cytopathic effects in human fibroblasts; (iv) most iPS-derived neurons are not permissive to HCMV infection; and (v) infected neurons have impaired calcium influx in response to glutamate. Our approach offers powerful cellular models to investigate the effect of neurotropic viral agents on human neurodevelopment. Adherent monolayer culture of neural progenitor cells (NPCs) were either infected with HCMV Ad169 in triplicate, with each individual sample harvested separately to provide biological replicates for expression analysis. Infected and mock-infected cells were harvested 24 h p.i. RNA. NPCs were 70-80% confluence.

ORGANISM(S): Homo sapiens

SUBMITTER: Leonardo D'Aiuto 

PROVIDER: E-GEOD-35295 | biostudies-arrayexpress |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-arrayexpress