Generating Neural Retina from Human Pluripotent Stem Cells

Summary

The present protocol describes an optimized 3D neural retina induction system that reduces the adhesion and fusion of retinal organoids with high repeatability and efficiency.

Abstract

Retinopathy is one of the main causes of blindness worldwide. Investigating its pathogenesis is essential for the early diagnosis and timely treatment of retinopathy. Unfortunately, ethical barriers hinder the collection of evidence from humans. Recently, numerous studies have shown that human pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) can be differentiated into retinal organoids (ROs) using different induction protocols, which have enormous potential in retinopathy for disease modeling, drug screening, and stem cell-based therapies. This study describes an optimized induction protocol to generate neural retina (NR) that significantly reduces the probability of vesiculation and fusion, increasing the success rate of production until day 60. Based on the ability of PSCs to self-reorganize after dissociation, combined with certain complementary factors, this new method can specifically drive NR differentiation. Furthermore, the approach is uncomplicated, cost-effective, exhibits notable repeatability and efficiency, presents encouraging prospects for personalized models of retinal diseases, and supplies a plentiful cell reservoir for applications such as cell therapy, drug screening, and gene therapy testing.

Introduction

The eye serves as the primary source of information among human sensory organs, with the retina being the principal visual sensory tissue in mammalian eyes¹. Retinopathy stands as one of the primary global causes of eye diseases, leading to blindness². Approximately 2.85 million people worldwide suffer from varying degrees of vision impairment due to retinopathy³. Consequently, investigating its pathogenesis is crucial for early diagnosis and timely treatment. Most studies on human retinopathy have primarily focused on animal models^4,5

Protocol

This study was conducted in accordance with the Tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee of the Chinese PLA General Hospital. The WA09 (H9) ESC line was obtained from the WiCell Research Institute.

1. Culture media and reagent preparation

1. Human ESC culture medium and passage solution
   1. Maintenance medium (MM): Prepare 500 mL of complete MM (Basal Medium + 5x supplement; see Table of Materials

Discussion

Human ROs can spatially and temporally recapitulate the development of the fetal retina, and early ROs exhibit a high degree of similarity to the fetal retina at equivalent stages of development¹⁵. In terms of tissue morphology and molecular expression, human RO closely mirror the actual growth status of the retinal tissue, providing tremendous and unprecedented opportunities in the fields of disease modeling, drug screening, and regenerative medicine. Currently, several different methods have bee.......

Materials

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
0.01 M TPBS	Servicebio	G0002	Washing slices
4% Paraformaldehyde	Servicebio	G1101-500ML	Fix retinal organoids
5 mL Pasteur pipette	NEST Biotechnology	318516	Pipette retinal organoids
96 V-bottomed conical wells	Sumitomo Bakelit	MS-9096VZ
Adhesion Microscope Slides	CITOTEST	188105	Fix slices
AggreWell medium	STEMCELL Technologies	5893	Medium
Anhydrous ethanol	SINOPHARM	10009218	Dehydrate
Anti-CHX10	Santa Cruz	sc-365519	Primary antibody
Antifade Solution	ZSGB-BIO	ZLI-9556
Anti-KI67	Abcam	ab16667	Primary antibody
Anti-NESTIN	Sigma	N5413	Primary antibody
Anti-Neuronal Class III β-Tubulin(TUJ1)	Beyotime	AT809	Primary antibody
Anti-PAX6	Abcam	ab195045	Primary antibody
Cell dissociation solution(CDS)	STEMCELL Technologies	7922	Cell dissociation
CHIR99021	Selleckchem	S2924	GSK-3α/β inhibitor
Cholesterol Lipid Concentrate	Gibco	12531018	250×
Citrate Antigen Retrieval Solution	Servicebio	G1202-250ML	20×, pH 6.0
CS10	STEMCELL Technologies	1001061	Cell Freezing Medium
DAPI	Roche	10236276001	Nuclear counterstain
Dimethyl sulfoxide(DMSO)	Sigma	D2650
DMEM/F12	Gibco	11330032	Medium
DMEM/F12-GlutaMAX	Gibco	10565018	Medium
Donkey anti-Mouse Alexa Fluor Plus 488	Invitrogen	A32766	Secondary Antibody
Donkey anti-Rabbit Alexa Fluor 568	Invitrogen	A10042	Secondary Antibody
Ethylene Diamine Tetraacetic Acid (EDTA)	Biosharp	BL518A	0.5 M, pH 8.0, cell dissociation
Extracellular matrix (ECM)	Corning	354277	Coating plates
F12-Glutamax	Gibco	31765035	Medium
Fetal Bovine Serum	Gibco	A5669701
Flow-like tissue cell quantitative analyzer	TissueGnostics	TissueFAXS Plus	Scan sections
IMDM-GlutaMAX	Gibco	31980030	Medium
IWR1-endo	Selleckchem	S7086	Wnt-inhibitor
KnockOut Serum Replacement	Gibco	10828028
LDN-193189 2HCl	Selleckchem	S7507	BMP-inhibitor
Low-adhesion 24-well Plates	Corning	3473
Low-adhesion 6-well Plates	Corning	3471
Maintenance medium (MM)	STEMCELL Technologies	85850	Medium
N2 supplement	Gibco	17502048
Normal Donkey Serum	Solarbio	SL050	Blocking buffer
Paraplast	Leica	39601006	Tissue embedding
PBS pH 7.4 basic (1x)	Gibco	C10010500BT	Without Ca+,Mg+
Reconbinant human bone morphogenetic protein-4(rhBMP4)	R&D	314-BP	Key protein factor
Retinoic acid	Sigma	R2625	Powder, keep out of light
SB431542	Selleckchem	S1067	ALK5-inhibitor
SU5402	Selleckchem	S7667	Tyrosine kinase inhibitor
Super PAP Pen	ZSGB-BIO	ZLI-9305
Taurine	Sigma	T0625-10G
Thioglycerol	Sigma	M1753
Triton X-100	Sigma	X100	Permeabilization
WA09 embryonic stem cell line	WiCell Research Institute		Cell line
Xylene	SINOPHARM	10023418	Dewaxing
Y-27632 2HCL	Selleckchem	S1049	ROCK-inhibitor