Investigation of the effects of GABA receptor agonists in the differentiation of human induced pluripotent stem cells into dopaminergic neurons.

The influence of GABA receptor agonists on the terminal differentiation in vitro of dopaminergic (DA) neurons derived from IPS cells was investigated. GABA-A agonist muscimol induced transient elevation of intracellular Ca2+ level ([Ca2+] i ) in the investigated cells at days 5 to 21 of differentiation. Differentiation of cells in the presence of muscimol reduced tyrosine hydroxylase expression. Thus, the presence of active GABA-A receptors, associated with phenotype determination via Ca2+-signalling was demonstrated in differentiating human DA neurons.