Characterization of Human iPSC-derived Spinal Motor Neurons by Single-cell RNA Sequencing.
Louise Thiry, Regan Hamel, Stefano Pluchino, Thomas Durcan, Stefano Stifani
Author Information
Louise Thiry: Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, McGill University, 3801, rue University, Montreal (Quebec) H3A 2B4, Canada.
Regan Hamel: Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Clifford Allbutt Building - Cambridge Biosciences Campus and NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, University of Cambridge, Hills Road, CB2 0HA Cambridge, UK.
Stefano Pluchino: Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Clifford Allbutt Building - Cambridge Biosciences Campus and NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, University of Cambridge, Hills Road, CB2 0HA Cambridge, UK.
Thomas Durcan: Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, McGill University, 3801, rue University, Montreal (Quebec) H3A 2B4, Canada; Early Drug Discovery Unit, Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, Canada.
Stefano Stifani: Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, McGill University, 3801, rue University, Montreal (Quebec) H3A 2B4, Canada. Electronic address: stefano.stifani@mcgill.ca.
Human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) offer the opportunity to generate specific cell types from healthy and diseased individuals, allowing the study of mechanisms of early human development, modelling a variety of human diseases, and facilitating the development of new therapeutics. Human iPSC-based applications are often limited by the variability among iPSC lines originating from a single donor, as well as the heterogeneity among specific cell types that can be derived from iPSCs. The ability to deeply phenotype different iPSC-derived cell types is therefore of primary importance to the successful and informative application of this technology. Here we describe a combination of motor neuron (MN) derivation and single-cell RNA sequencing approaches to generate and characterize specific MN subtypes obtained from human iPSCs. Our studies provide evidence for rapid and robust generation of MN progenitor cells that can give rise to a heterogenous population of MNs. Approximately 58% of human iPSC-derived MNs display molecular characteristics of lateral motor column MNs, with a number of molecularly distinct subpopulations present within this MN group. Roughly 19% of induced MNs resemble hypaxial motor column MNs, while ∼6% of induced MNs have features of median motor column MNs. The present study has the potential to improve our understanding of iPSC-derived MN subtype function and dysfunction, possibly leading to improved iPSC-based applications for the study of human MN biology and disease.
