Generation of three dimensional retinal tissue with functional photoreceptors from human iPSCs

By X. Zhong, C. Gutierrez, Tian Xue, Christopher Hampton, M. N. Vergara, Li-Hui Cao, Ann Peters, T. Park, Elias T. Zambidis, J. Meyer and 3 more. Nature Communications, 2014

865 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Many forms of blindness result from the dysfunction or loss of retinal photoreceptors. Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) hold great potential for the modelling of these diseases or as potential therapeutic agents. However, to fulfill this promise, a remaining challenge is to induce human iPSC to recreate in vitro key structural and functional features of the native retina, in particular the presence of photoreceptors with outer-segment discs and light sensitivity. Here we report that hiPSC can, in a highly autonomous manner, recapitulate spatiotemporally each of the main steps of retinal development observed in vivo and form three-dimensional retinal cups that contain all major retinal cell types arranged in their proper layers. Moreover, the photoreceptors in our hiPSC-derived retinal tissue achieve advanced maturation, showing the beginning of outer-segment disc formation and photosensitivity. This success brings us one step closer to the anticipated use of hiPSC for disease modelling and open possibilities for future therapies. Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) hold great potential for modelling human developmental processes and diseases. Here the authors induce human iPSCs to spontaneously form fully laminated three-dimensional retinal tissue containing functional photoreceptor cells.

Subfields: Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience, Molecular Biology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/41243bd30ad8d37e5e3a4f19eeb41ce43f48d31a

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience

1. Ed Boyden
2. Giorgia Quadrato
3. P. Arlotta
4. Karl Deisseroth

In Molecular Biology

1. Ed Boyden
2. Jeff William Lichtman
3. Steven A. McCarroll
4. Jennifer Waters
5. David J. Asai

Citations in the corpus

• Cell diversity and network dynamics in photosensitive human brain organoids (2017, result): “This is in agreement with the finding that retinal organoids contain photosensitive cells 36 .”