Differentiation, Maintenance, and Analysis of Human Retinal Pigment Epithelium Cells: A Disease-in-a-dish Model for BEST1 Mutations

Here we present a protocol to differentiate retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells from human pluripotent stem cells bearing patient-derived mutations. The mutant cell lines may be used for functional analyses including immunoblotting, immunofluorescence, and patch clamp. This disease-in-a-dish approach circumvents the difficulty of obtaining native human RPE cells.