Assembling Retinal Organoids with Microglia

Summary

Microglia are unique resident immune cells in the retina, playing crucial roles in various retinal degenerative diseases. Generating a co-culture model of retinal organoids with microglia can facilitate a better understanding of the pathogenesis and development progress of retinal diseases.

Abstract

Due to the limited accessibility of the human retina, retinal organoids (ROs) are the best model for studying human retinal disease, which could reveal the mechanism of retinal development and the occurrence of retinal disease. Microglia (MG) are unique resident macrophages in the retina and central nervous system (CNS), serving crucial immunity functions. However, retinal organoids lack microglia since their differentiation origin is the yolk sac. The specific pathogenesis of microglia in these retinal diseases remains unclear; therefore, the establishment of a microglia-incorporated retinal organoid model turns out to be necessary. Here, we successfully constructed a co-cultured model of retinal organoids with microglia derived from human stem cells. In this article, we differentiated microglia and then co-cultured to retinal organoids in the early stage. As the incorporation of immune cells, this model provides an optimized platform for retinal disease modeling and drug screening to facilitate in-depth research on the pathogenesis and treatment of retinal and CNS-related diseases.

Introduction

As the limited source of the human retina, the differentiation of human stem cells into three-dimensional (3D) retinal organoids represents a promising in vitro model for simulating the retina¹. It contains different cell types in the retina, including photoreceptors, retinal ganglion cells, bipolar cells, Müller cells, horizontal cells, and astrocytes². This model enables the emulation and study of both retinal development mechanisms and the pathogenesis of retinal diseases. However, due to the directional differentiation method, retinal organoids were derived from the neuroectoderm³

Protocol

This study was approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee of Beijing Tongren Hospital, Capital Medical University. HESCs cell line H9 was from the WiCell Research Institute. Pre-warm the cell culture medium at room temperature (RT) for 30 min before the experiment.

1. Generation of human microglia

1. Culture the hESCs in stem cell medium until the cell density reaches 80%-90%. Seed at least 1 x 10⁶ cells in each well.
2. Aspirate the stem cell me.......

Discussion

Due to the restricted availability of the human retina, our current comprehension of retinal inflammatory responses almost comes from animal models. To overcome this limitation, retinal organoids were differentiated. The development of retinal organoid models has been an active area of research, aiming to recapitulate the complexity of the human retina for disease modeling and therapeutic development. Several studies have reported successfully generating retinal organoids from human pluripotent stem cells

Materials

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
Acctuase	Stemcell Technologies	07920
Advanced DMEM/F12	Thermo	12634-010
Anti-CRX(M02)	abnova	H00001406-M02	Antibody; dilution as per the manufacturer's instructions
Anti-IBA1	Abcam	ab5076	Antibody; dilution as per the manufacturer's instructions
B27	Life Technologies	17105-041
Dispase (1U/mL)	Stemcell Technologies	07923
DMEM basic	Gibco	10566-016
DMEM/F12	Gibco	10565-042
DPBS	Gibco	C141905005BT
EDTA	Thermo	15575020
F12	Gibco	11765-054
FBS	Biological Industry	04-002-1A
Gelatin	Sigma	G7041-100G	Solid
Glutamax	Gibco	35050-061
H9 cell line	WiCell Research Institute
IL-3	RD Systems	203-IL-050
IL-34	PeproTech	200-34-50UG
KSR	Gibco	10828028
Matrix	Corning	356231
M-CSF	RD Systems	216-MC-500
MEM Non-essential Amino Acid Solution	Sigma	M7145
N2	Life Technologies	17502-048
Neurobasal	Gibco	21103-049
Pen/strep	Gibco	15140-122
Stem cell medium	Stemcell Technologies	5990
Taurine	Sigma	T-8691-25G
X-ViVO	LONZA	04-418Q
Y27632	Selleck	S1049
β-mercaptoethanol	Life Technologies	21985-023