Generation of reprogrammed induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) from patients with defined genetic disorders promises important avenues to understand the etiologies of complex diseases, and the development of novel therapeutic interventions. We have generated iPSC from patients with LEOPARD syndrome (LS; acronym of its main features: Lentigines, Electrocardiographic abnormalities, Ocular hypertelorism, Pulmonary valve stenosis, Abnormal genitalia, Retardation of growth and Deafness), an autosomal dominant developmental disorder belonging to a relatively prevalent class of inherited RAS-MAPK signaling diseases, which also includes Noonan syndrome (NS), with pleiomorphic effects on several tissues and organ systems1,2. The patient-derived cells have a mutation in the PTPN11 gene, which encodes the SHP2 phosphatase. The iPSC have been extensively characterized and produce multiple differentiated cell lineages. A major disease phenotype in patients with LEOPARD syndrome is hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. We show that in vitro-derived cardiomyocytes from LS-iPSC are larger, have a higher degree of sarcomeric organization and preferential localization of NFATc4 in the nucleus when compared to cardiomyocytes derived from human embryonic stem cells (HESC) or wild type (wt) iPSC derived from a healthy brother of one of the LS patients. These features correlate with a potential hypertrophic state. We also provide molecular insights into signaling pathways that may promote the disease phenotype.

The onset of hematopoiesis in the mouse embryo and in the embryonic stem (ES) cell differentiation model is defined by the emergence of the hemangioblast, a progenitor with both hematopoietic and vascular potential. While there is evidence for the existence of a hemangioblast in the mouse, it is unclear if this progenitor develops during the establishment of the human hematopoietic system. In this report, we have mapped hematopoietic development in human ES cell (hESC) differentiation cultures and demonstrated that a comparable hemangioblast population exists. The human hemangioblasts were identified by their capacity to generate blast colonies that display both hematopoietic and vascular potential. These colony-forming cells express the receptor tyrosine kinase KDR (VEGF receptor 2) and represent a transient population that develops in BMP-4-stimulated embryoid bodies (EBs) be IntroductionThe earliest stage of hematopoietic development in the mouse has been historically associated with the appearance of yolk sac blood islands that consist of clusters of primitive erythroblasts surrounded by maturing endothelial cells. [1][2][3] The close temporal and spatial development of the hematopoietic and endothelial cells in these blood islands provided the basis for the hypothesis that these lineages share a common ancestor, a progenitor known as the hemangioblast. 4,5 While expression analyses 6-10 and gene targeting approaches [11][12][13][14] have provided circumstantial evidence in support of this concept, it was studies using the embryonic stem (ES) cell differentiation model that first identified a progenitor with properties of the hemangioblast. 15,16 When cultured in methylcellulose, these progenitors generate immature blast colonies that display both hematopoietic and vascular potential. 15 The cell that initiates these colonies, the blast colony-forming cell (BL-CFC) or hemangioblast, expresses the receptor tyrosine kinase Flk-1 and the mesodermal gene T (brachyury), indicating that it represents a population undergoing mesoderm specification to the hematopoietic and vascular lineages. 17 A progenitor comparable with the BL-CFC has also been identified in the early gastrulating embryo. 18 Similar to the BL-CFC, the embryo-derived progenitor displays primitive erythroid and myeloid potential and expresses both Flk-1 and T. Mapping studies revealed that the embryo hemangioblast is found at highest numbers in the posterior region of the primitive streak and not in the yolk sac, an observation that further supports the interpretation that this progenitor represents a transient mesodermal population undergoing hematopoietic and vascular commitment. The identification of the hemangioblast in the primitive streak of the early embryo demonstrates that hematopoietic commitment initiates earlier than previously described, prior to the establishment of the yolk sac blood islands. The striking similarities between the ES cell-and embryo-derived hemangioblasts add strong support to a growing body of evidence indicating tha...

Directed differentiation of human embryonic stem (hES) cells and human induced pluripotent stem (hiPS) cells captures in vivo developmental pathways for specifying lineages in vitro, thus avoiding perturbation of the genome with exogenous genetic material. Thus far, derivation of endodermal lineages has focused predominantly on hepatocytes, pancreatic endocrine cells and intestinal cells1–5. The ability to differentiate pluripotent cells into anterior foregut endoderm (AFE) derivatives would expand their utility for cell therapy and basic research to tissues important for immune function, such as the thymus; for metabolism, such as thyroid and parathyroid; and for respiratory function, such as trachea and lung. We find that dual inhibition of transforming growth factor (TGF)-β and bone morphogenic protein (BMP) signaling after specification of definitive endoderm from pluripotent cells results in a highly enriched AFE population that is competent to be patterned along dorsoventral and anteroposterior axes. These findings provide an approach for the generation of AFE derivatives.

SUMMARY Variability in induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) lines remains a concern for disease modeling and regenerative medicine. We have used RNA sequencing analysis and linear mixed models to examine the sources of gene expression variability in 317 human iPSC lines from 101 individuals. We found that ~50% of genome-wide expression variability is explained by variation across individuals and identified a set of expression quantitative trait loci that contribute to this variation. These analyses coupled with allele specific expression show that iPSCs retain a donor specific gene expression pattern. Network, pathway and key driver analyses showed that Polycomb targets contribute significantly to the non-genetic variability seen within and across individuals, highlighting this chromatin regulator as a likely source of reprogramming-based variability. Our findings therefore shed light on variation between iPSC lines and illustrate the potential for our dataset and other similar large-scale analyses to identify underlying drivers relevant to iPSC applications.

Lung and airway epithelial cells generated in vitro from human pluripotent stem cells have applications in regenerative medicine, modeling of lung disease, drug screening and studies of human lung development. Here we describe a strategy for directed differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells into developmental lung progenitors, and their subsequent differentiation into predominantly distal lung epithelial cells. The protocol entails four stages that recapitulate lung development and takes approximately 50 days. First, definitive endoderm is induced in the presence of high concentrations of Activin A. Subsequently, lung-biased anterior foregut endoderm is specified by sequential inhibition of BMP, TGF-β and Wnt signaling. Anterior foregut endoderm is then ventralized by applying Wnt, BMP, FGF and RA signaling to obtain lung and airway progenitors. Finally, these are further differentiated into more mature epithelial cells types using Wnt, FGF, c-AMP and glucocorticoid agonism. This protocol is conducted in defined conditions, does not involve genetic manipulation of the cells, and results in cultures where the majority of the cells express markers of various lung and airway epithelial cells, with a predominance of cells identifiable as functional type II alveolar epithelial cells.

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Human high-grade gliomas (hHGG) remain a therapeutic challenge in neuro-oncology despite current multimodality treatments. We recently demonstrated that murine embryonic stem cell (mESC)-derived astrocytes conditionally expressing proapoptotic genes can successfully be used to induce apoptosis and tumor shrinkage of hHGG tumor in vitro and in an in vivo mouse model. The first step in the translation of these results to the clinical settings, however, requires availability of human embryonic stem cells (hESC)- and/or induced pluripotent cell (hiPSC)-derived astrocytes engineered to express proapoptotic genes. The potential for directed differentiation of hESCs and hiPSCs to functional postmitotic astrocytes is not fully characterized. In this study, we show that once specified to neuro-epithelial lineage, hiPSC could be differentiated to astrocytes with a similar efficiency as hESC. However, our analyses of 2 hESC and 2 hiPSC cell lines showed some variability in differentiation potential into astrocytic lineages. Both the hESC- and hiPSC-derived astrocytes appeared to follow the functional properties of mESC-derived astrocytes, namely, migration and tropism for hHGG. This work provides evidence that hESC- and hiPSC-derived cells are able to generate functionally active astrocytes. These results demonstrate the feasibility of using iPSC-derived astrocytes, a new potential source for therapeutic use for brain tumors and other neurological diseases.

In this report, we have defined the stage at which Scl functions in the establishment of the hematopoietic system and provide evidence that its primary role is in the generation of the hematopoietic lineages from a progenitor called the blast colony-forming cell (BL-CFC), a cell considered to be the in vitro equivalent of the hemangioblast. Using an embryonic stem (