技术资料

Our understanding of the signalling pathways regulating early human development is limited,despite their fundamental biological importance. Here,we mine transcriptomics datasets to investigate signalling in the human embryo and identify expression for the insulin and insulin growth factor 1 (IGF1) receptors,along with IGF1 ligand. Consequently,we generate a minimal chemically-defined culture medium in which IGF1 together with Activin maintain self-renewal in the absence of fibroblast growth factor (FGF) signalling. Under these conditions,we derive several pluripotent stem cell lines that express pluripotency-associated genes,retain high viability and a normal karyotype,and can be genetically modified or differentiated into multiple cell lineages. We also identify active phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)/AKT/mTOR signalling in early human embryos,and in both primed and na{\{i}}ve pluripotent culture conditions. This demonstrates that signalling insights from human blastocysts can be used to define culture conditions that more closely recapitulate the embryonic niche." View Publication

Developmental and/or epileptic encephalopathies (DEEs) are a group of devastating genetic disorders,resulting in early-onset,therapy-resistant seizures and developmental delay. Here we report on 22 individuals from 15 families presenting with a severe form of intractable epilepsy,severe developmental delay,progressive microcephaly,visual disturbance and similar minor dysmorphisms. Whole exome sequencing identified a recurrent,homozygous variant (chr2:64083454A {\textgreater} G) in the essential UDP-glucose pyrophosphorylase (UGP2) gene in all probands. This rare variant results in a tolerable Met12Val missense change of the longer UGP2 protein isoform but causes a disruption of the start codon of the shorter isoform,which is predominant in brain. We show that the absence of the shorter isoform leads to a reduction of functional UGP2 enzyme in neural stem cells,leading to altered glycogen metabolism,upregulated unfolded protein response and premature neuronal differentiation,as modeled during pluripotent stem cell differentiation in vitro. In contrast,the complete lack of all UGP2 isoforms leads to differentiation defects in multiple lineages in human cells. Reduced expression of Ugp2a/Ugp2b in vivo in zebrafish mimics visual disturbance and mutant animals show a behavioral phenotype. Our study identifies a recurrent start codon mutation in UGP2 as a cause of a novel autosomal recessive DEE syndrome. Importantly,it also shows that isoform-specific start-loss mutations causing expression loss of a tissue-relevant isoform of an essential protein can cause a genetic disease,even when an organism-wide protein absence is incompatible with life. We provide additional examples where a similar disease mechanism applies. View Publication

Understanding the root causes of autoimmune diseases is hampered by the inability to access relevant human tissues and identify the time of disease onset. To examine the interaction of immune cells and their cellular targets in type 1 diabetes,we differentiated human induced pluripotent stem cells into pancreatic endocrine cells,including $\beta$ cells. Here,we describe an in vitro platform that models features of human type 1 diabetes using stress-induced patient-derived endocrine cells and autologous immune cells. We demonstrate a cell-type-specific response by autologous immune cells against induced pluripotent stem cell-derived $\beta$ cells,along with a reduced effect on $\alpha$ cells. This approach represents a path to developing disease models that use patient-derived cells to predict the outcome of an autoimmune response. View Publication

AIMS Current treatment for congenital long QT syndrome Type 2 (cLQTS2),an electrical disorder that increases the risk of life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias,is aimed at reducing the incidence of arrhythmia triggers (beta-blockers) or terminating the arrhythmia after onset (implantable cardioverter-defibrillator). An alternative strategy is to target the underlying disease mechanism,which is reduced rapid delayed rectifier current (IKr) passed by Kv11.1 channels. Small molecule activators of Kv11.1 have been identified but the extent to which these can restore normal cardiac signalling in cLQTS2 backgrounds remains unclear. Here,we examined the ability of ICA-105574,an activator of Kv11.1 that impairs transition to the inactivated state,to restore function to heterozygous Kv11.1 channels containing either inactivation enhanced (T618S,N633S) or expression deficient (A422T) mutations. METHODS AND RESULTS ICA-105574 effectively restored Kv11.1 current from heterozygous inactivation enhanced or expression defective mutant channels in heterologous expression systems. In a human-induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocyte (hiPSC-CM) model of cLQTS2 containing the expression defective Kv11.1 mutant A422T,cardiac repolarization,estimated from the duration of calcium transients in isolated cells and the rate corrected field potential duration (FPDc) in culture monolayers of cells,was significantly prolonged. The Kv11.1 activator ICA-105574 was able to reverse the prolonged repolarization in a concentration-dependent manner. However,at higher doses,ICA-105574 produced a shortening of the FPDc compared to controls. In vitro and in silico analysis suggests that this overcorrection occurs as a result of a temporal redistribution of the peak IKr to much earlier in the plateau phase of the action potential,which results in early repolarization. CONCLUSION Kv11.1 activators,which target the primary disease mechanism,provide a possible treatment option for cLQTS2,with the caveat that there may be a risk of overcorrection that could itself be pro-arrhythmic. View Publication

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) derived from healthy individuals are important controls for disease-modeling studies. Here we apply precision health to create a high-quality resource of control iPSCs. Footprint-free lines were reprogrammed from four volunteers of the Personal Genome Project Canada (PGPC). Multilineage-directed differentiation efficiently produced functional cortical neurons,cardiomyocytes and hepatocytes. Pilot users demonstrated versatility by generating kidney organoids,T lymphocytes,and sensory neurons. A frameshift knockout was introduced into MYBPC3 and these cardiomyocytes exhibited the expected hypertrophic phenotype. Whole-genome sequencing-based annotation of PGPC lines revealed on average 20 coding variants. Importantly,nearly all annotated PGPC and HipSci lines harbored at least one pre-existing or acquired variant with cardiac,neurological,or other disease associations. Overall,PGPC lines were efficiently differentiated by multiple users into cells from six tissues for disease modeling,and variant-preferred healthy control lines were identified for specific disease settings. View Publication