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Conversion of Human Fibroblasts to Stably Self-Renewing Neural Stem Cells with a Single Zinc-Finger Transcription Factor

ABSTRACT: Direct conversion of somatic cells into neural stem cells (NSCs) by defined factors holds great promise for mechanistic studies, drug screening, and potential cell therapies for different neurodegenerative diseases. Here, we report that a single zinc-finger transcription factor, Zfp521, is sufficient for direct conversion of human fibroblasts into long-term self-renewable and multipotent NSCs. In vitro, Zfp521-induced NSCs maintained their characteristics in the absence of exogenous factor expression and exhibited morphological, molecular, developmental, and functional properties that were similar to control NSCs. Additionally, the single seeded induced NSCs were able to form NSC colonies with efficiency comparable to control NSCs and expressed NSC markers. The converted cells were capable of surviving, migrating and attaining neural phenotypes after transplantation into neonatal mouse- and adult rat brains, without forming tumors. Moreover, the Zfp521-induced NSCs predominantly expressed rostral genes. Our results suggest a facilitated approach for establishing human NSCs through Zfp521-driven conversion of fibroblasts.

ORGANISM(S): Homo sapiens

PROVIDER: GSE64882 | GEO | 2017/01/01

SECONDARY ACCESSION(S): PRJNA272398

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:Neural stem cell (NSC) transplantation replaces damaged brain cells and provides disease-modifying effects in many neurological disorders. However, there has been no efficient way to obtain autologous NSCs in patients. Given that ectopic factors can reprogram somatic cells to be pluripotent, we attempted to generate human NSC-like cells by reprograming human fibroblasts. Fibroblasts were transfected with NSC line-derived cellular extracts and grown in neurosphere culture conditions. The cells were then analyzed for NSC characteristics, including neurosphere formation, gene expression patterns, and ability to differentiate. The obtained induced neurosphere-like cells (iNS), which formed daughter neurospheres after serial passaging, expressed neural stem cell markers, and had demethylated SOX2 regulatory regions, all characteristics of human NSCs. The iNS had gene expression patterns that were a combination of the patterns of NSCs and fibroblasts, but they could be differentiated to express neuroglial markers and neuronal sodium channels. These results show for the first time that iNS can be directly generated from human fibroblasts. Further studies on their application in neurological diseases are warranted. We generated induced neural stem cells (iNS) and compared the gene expressions with control cells, which included primary human dermal fibroblast cultured in DMEM media (FB), primary human dermal fibroblast cultured in neurosphere-forming condition (FB_con), and neural stem cell line (F3). The four cell lines (iNS, FB, FB_con, and F3) showed different gene expression patterns. In detail, RNA was isolated using Trizol (Invitrogen) according to the manufacturer's instructions, and was labeled and hybridized to an Affimetrix GeneChip human gene 1.0 ST array (Affimetrix, Santa Clara, CA, USA) as described according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Data were analyzed using Expression Console software version 1.1 (Affimetrix), in which gene expression ratios were normalized by Robust Multichip Analysis according to the manufacturer’s protocol.

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Conversion of Human Fibroblasts to Stably Self-Renewing Neural Stem Cells with a Single Zinc-Finger Transcription Factor

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