Rapid Induction of Cerebral Organoids From Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells Using a Chemically Defined Hydrogel and Defined Cell Culture Medium.

UNLABELLED: Tissue organoids are a promising technology that may accelerate development of the societal and NIH mandate for precision medicine. Here we describe a robust and simple method for generating cerebral organoids (cOrgs) from human pluripotent stem cells by using a chemically defined hydrogel material and chemically defined culture medium. By using no additional neural induction components, cOrgs appeared on the hydrogel surface within 10-14 days, and under static culture conditions, they attained sizes up to 3 mm in greatest dimension by day 28. Histologically, the organoids showed neural rosette and neural tube-like structures and evidence of early corticogenesis. Immunostaining and quantitative reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction demonstrated protein and gene expression representative of forebrain, midbrain, and hindbrain development. Physiologic studies showed responses to glutamate and depolarization in many cells, consistent with neural behavior. The method of cerebral organoid generation described here facilitates access to this technology, enables scalable applications, and provides a potential pathway to translational applications where defined components are desirable. SIGNIFICANCE: Tissue organoids are a promising technology with many potential applications, such as pharmaceutical screens and development of in vitro disease models, particularly for human polygenic conditions where animal models are insufficient. This work describes a robust and simple method for generating cerebral organoids from human induced pluripotent stem cells by using a chemically defined hydrogel material and chemically defined culture medium. This method, by virtue of its simplicity and use of defined materials, greatly facilitates access to cerebral organoid technology, enables scalable applications, and provides a potential pathway to translational applications where defined components are desirable.

Satellite cell heterogeneity revealed by G-Tool, an open algorithm to quantify myogenesis through colony-forming assays.

BACKGROUND: Muscle growth and repair is accomplished by the satellite cell pool, a self-renewing population of myogenic progenitors. Functional heterogeneity within the satellite cell compartment and changes in potential with experimental intervention can be revealed by in vitro colony-forming cell (CFC) assays, however large numbers of colonies need to be assayed to give meaningful data, and manually quantifying nuclei and scoring markers of differentiation is experimentally limiting. METHODS: We present G-Tool, a multiplatform (Java) open-source algorithm that analyzes an ensemble of fluorescent micrographs of satellite cell-derived colonies to provide quantitative and statistically meaningful metrics of myogenic potential, including proliferation capacity and propensity to differentiate. RESULTS: We demonstrate the utility of G-Tool in two applications: first, we quantify the response of satellite cells to oxygen concentration. Compared to 3% oxygen which approximates tissue levels, we find that 21% oxygen, the ambient level, markedly limits the proliferative potential of transit amplifying progeny but at the same time inhibits the rate of terminal myogenic differentiation. We also test whether satellite cells from different muscles have intrinsic differences that can be read out in vitro. Compared to masseter, dorsi, forelimb and hindlimb muscles, we find that the diaphragm satellite cells have significantly increased proliferative potential and a reduced propensity to spontaneously differentiate. These features may be related to the unique always-active status of the diaphragm. CONCLUSIONS: G-Tool facilitates consistent and reproducible CFC analysis between experiments and individuals. It is released under an open-source license that enables further development by interested members of the community.