Project description:Organoid technologies provide an accessible system in which to examine the generation, self-organization,and 3-dimensional cellular interactions during development of the human cerebral cortex. However, oligodendrocytes, the myelinating glia of the central nervous system and third major neural cell type, are conspicuously absent from current protocols. Here we reproducibly generate human oligodendrocytes and myelin in pluripotent stem cell-derived cortical spheroids. Transcriptional and immunohistochemical analysis of the spheroids demonstrates molecular features consistent with maturing human oligodendrocytes within 14 weeks of culture, including expression of MyRF, PLP1, and MBP proteins. Histological analysis by electron microscopy shows initial wrapping of human neuronal axons with myelin by 20 weeks and maturation to compact myelin by 30 weeks in culture. Treatment of spheroids with previously identified promyelinating drugs enhances the rate and extent of human oligodendrocyte generation and myelination. Furthermore, generation of spheroids from patients with a severe genetic myelin disorder, Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease, demonstrates the ability to recapitulate human disease phenotypes, which were in turn improved with both pharmacologic and CRISPR-based approaches. Collectively, these 3-dimensional, multi-lineage cortical spheroids provide a versatile platform to observe and perturb the complex cellular interactions that occur during developmental myelination of the brain and offer new opportunities for disease modeling and therapeutic development in human tissue.
Project description:We showed that the composition of the nucler lamina changes with the differentiation state of oligodendrocyte lineage cells, with Lamin B highly expressed in progenitor cells and Lamin A highly expressed in mature oligodendrocytes. The genetic deletion of Lmna in oligodendrocytes results in the onset of a progressive motor phenotype in adult mice. We performed RNA-Seq in myelinating oligodendrocytes expressing the reporter myelin marker NDRG1-EGFP ( Marechal et al., 2021) in the presence or absence of LMNA. The goal is to identify the transcriptome profile in mice LMNA ablated cells compared to the controls.
Project description:We showed that the composition of the nuclear lamina changes with the differentiation state of oligodendrocyte lineage cells, with Lamin B highly expressed in progenitor cells and Lamin A highly expressed in mature oligodendrocytes. The genetic deletion of LMNA in mice results in the onset of a progressive motor phenotype in adult mice. We performed ATAC-Seq in myelinating Oligodendrocytes expressing the myelin marker NDRG1-EGFP ( Marechal et al., 2021) in the presence or absence of LMNA. The goal is to identify regions of chromatin accessibility that distinguish the LMNA KO mutant cells from the WT.
Project description:We report a method for deriving oligodendrocyte lineage cells from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) in three-dimensional (3D) culture called human oligodendrocyte spheroids (hOLS). To characterize oligodendrocyte-lineage cells in hOLS, we isolated O4+ cells by immunopanning and performed deep single cell RNA sequencing. We sequenced 295 cells and compared their profiles to unsorted cells isolated from primary human fetal cortex, primary human adult cortex, and hCS. Clustering of all cells using the t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding (tSNE) approach revealed a distinct populations of SOX10+ oligodendrocytes, within which the O4+ cells derived from hOLS clustered most closely to oligodendrocyte progenitor cells (OPCs) and mature oligodendrocytes from the primary human adult cortical tissue. Additionally, subpopulations of OPCs, newly formed oligodendrocytes, and myelinating oligodendrocytes derived were observed in the hOLS-derived cluster. To further assess the state of oligodendrocyte-lineage cells in hOLS, we performed a Monocle analysis which revealed a spectrum of oligodendrocyte-lineage stages in hOLS ranging from dividing cells that closely resembled primary OPCs to mature cells that closely resembled primary oligodendrocytes.
Project description:Oligodendrocytes are cells from the central nervous system that can be grouped into precursors, myelin-forming, and non-myelinating perineuronal. The function of perineuronal oligodendrocytes is unknown; it was suggested that they can ensheath denuded axons. We tested this hypothesis. Using cell-specific tags, microarray technology and bioinformatics tools to identify gene expression differences between these subpopulations allowed us to capture the genetic signature of perineuronal oligodendrocytes. Here we report that perineuronal oligodendrocytes are configured for a dual role. As perineuronal, they integrate a repertoire of transcripts designed to create a cell with its own physiological agenda. But they maintain a reservoir of untranslated transcripts encoding the major myelin proteins for â we speculate â a pathological eventuality. We posit that the signature molecules PDGFR-αβ, cytokine PDGF-CC, and the transcription factor Pea3 used â among others - to define the non-myelinating phenotype, may be critical for mounting a myelinating programme during demyelination. Harnessing this capability is of therapeutic value for diseases such as multiple sclerosis. This is the first molecular characterization of perineuronal oligodendrocytes. Experiment Overall Design: Flow Cytometry was used to isolate A2B5/OTMP+ oligodendrocytes from postnatal day 7 rat brain. 4 bioloical replicates were obtained. This data can be compared to the previously submitted oligodendrocyte expression data (GSE5940).
Project description:Single-cell RNA-seq: We used single-cell RNAseq to investigate the maturation of astrocytes within human cortical spheroids Bulk RNA-seq: Bulk sequencing from astrocytes and neurons purified (via immunopanning) from iPSC-derived coritical spheroids at varying in vitro differentiation states
Project description:Oligodendrocytes are cells from the central nervous system that can be grouped into precursors, myelin-forming, and non-myelinating perineuronal. The function of perineuronal oligodendrocytes is unknown; it was suggested that they can ensheath denuded axons. We tested this hypothesis. Using cell-specific tags, microarray technology and bioinformatics tools to identify gene expression differences between these subpopulations allowed us to capture the genetic signature of perineuronal oligodendrocytes. Here we report that perineuronal oligodendrocytes are configured for a dual role. As perineuronal, they integrate a repertoire of transcripts designed to create a cell with its own physiological agenda. But they maintain a reservoir of untranslated transcripts encoding the major myelin proteins for – we speculate – a pathological eventuality. We posit that the signature molecules PDGFR-αβ, cytokine PDGF-CC, and the transcription factor Pea3 used – among others - to define the non-myelinating phenotype, may be critical for mounting a myelinating programme during demyelination. Harnessing this capability is of therapeutic value for diseases such as multiple sclerosis. This is the first molecular characterization of perineuronal oligodendrocytes. Keywords: developmental
Project description:Here we assess the reliability of human cortical spheroid differentiation cultured in xeno-free, feeder-free conditions. We find high reliability in differentiation across multiple hiPSC lines as well as across experiments, and we anticipate that this directed differentiation approach will be useful for large scale generation of brain-region specific spheroids and disease modeling.
Project description:Oligodendrocytes exist in a heterogenous state and are implicated in multiple neuropsychiatric diseases including dementia. Cortical oligodendrocytes are a glial population uniquely positioned to play a key role in neurodegeneration by synchronizing circuit connectivity but molecular pathways specific to this role are lacking. We utilized oligodendrocyte-specific translating ribosome affinity purification and RNA-seq (TRAP-seq) to transcriptionally profile adult mature oligodendrocytes from different regions of the central nervous system. Weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) reveals distinct region-specific gene networks. Two of these mature myelinating oligodendrocyte gene networks uniquely define cortical oligodendrocytes and differentially regulate cortical myelination (M8) and synaptic signaling (M4). These two cortical oligodendrocyte gene networks are enriched for genes associated with dementia including MAPT and include multiple gene targets of the regulatory microRNA, miR-142-3p. Using a combination of TRAP-qPCR, miR-142-3p overexpression in vitro, and miR-142-null mice, we show that miR-142-3p negatively regulates cortical myelination. In rTg4510 tau-overexpressing mice, cortical myelination is compromised, and tau-mediated neurodegeneration is associated with gene co-expression networks that recapitulate both the M8 and M4 cortical oligodendrocyte gene networks identified from normal cortex. We further demonstrate overlapping gene networks in mature oligodendrocytes present in normal cortex, rTg4510 and miR-142-null mice, and existing datasets from human tauopathies to provide evidence for a critical role of miR-142-3p-regulated cortical myelination and oligodendrocyte-mediated synaptic signaling in neurodegeneration.