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During the past two decades, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) have been widely used to study mechanisms of human neural development, disease modeling, and drug discovery in vitro. Especially in the field of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), where this treatment is lacking, tremendous effort has been put into the investigation of molecular mechanisms behind this disease using induced pluripotent stem cell-based models. Numerous of these studies have found either novel regulatory mechanisms that could be exploited to develop relevant drugs for AD treatment or have already tested small molecules on in vitro cultures, directly demonstrating their effect on amelioration of AD-associated pathology. This review thus summarizes currently used differentiation strategies of induced pluripotent stem cells towards neuronal and glial cell types and cerebral organoids and their utilization in modeling AD and potential drug discovery. Graphical abstract

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Chicks (1-d-old, three groups, each containing 50 chicks) were inoculated with 2 x 10(2) and 2 x 10(8) CFU of Salmonella enteritidis; the third group were kept as uninoculated control. Five birds from each group were euthanized at intervals from 6 h to 4 weeks post-inoculation (pi). In the low-dose group S. enteritidis was isolated from 60% cecal samples at 18 h pi, and from 20% of livers at 3 d pi. Individual variation in the frequency of S. enteritidis recovery was observed in this group. The clearance of salmonella from the organs was faster in the low-dose group, and salmonella was not isolated from the liver and cecum at 21 and at 27 d pi, respectively. However, in the high-dose group, S. enteritidis was isolated from all ceca and 80% of liver 6 h pi, and salmonella was detected in the cecum and liver throughout the experiment. Serous typhlitis and unabsorbed yolk sac were the most prevalent lesions in both groups. Granulomatous nodules in the cecum were found occasionally in some cases in both inoculated groups, which can play a role as reservoirs in carrier chicks.

Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) represent a promising tool to study functions of genes during development, to model diseases, and to even develop therapies when combined with gene editing techniques such as CRISPR/CRISPR-associated protein-9 nuclease (Cas9) system. However, the process of disruption of gene expression by generation of null alleles is often inefficient and tedious. To circumvent these limitations, we developed a simple and efficient protocol to permanently downregulate expression of a gene of interest in hESCs using CRISPR/Cas9. We selected p53 for our proof of concept experiments. The methodology is based on series of hESC transfection, which leads to efficient downregulation of p53 expression even in polyclonal population (p53 Low cells), here proven by a loss of regulation of the expression of p53 target gene, microRNA miR-34a. We demonstrate that our approach achieves over 80% efficiency in generating hESC clonal sublines that do not express p53 protein. Importantly, we document by a set of functional experiments that such genetically modified hESCs do retain typical stem cells characteristics. In summary, we provide a simple and robust protocol to efficiently target expression of gene of interest in hESCs that can be useful for laboratories aiming to employ gene editing in their hESC applications/protocols.

The ‘gold standard’ treatment of severe neonatal jaundice is phototherapy with blue–green light, which produces more polar photo-oxidation products that are easily excreted via the bile or urine. The aim of this study was to compare the effects of bilirubin (BR) and its major photo-oxidation product lumirubin (LR) on the proliferation, differentiation, morphology, and specific gene and protein expressions of self-renewing human pluripotent stem cell-derived neural stem cells (NSC). Neither BR nor LR in biologically relevant concentrations (12.5 and 25 µmol/L) affected cell proliferation or the cell cycle phases of NSC. Although none of these pigments affected terminal differentiation to neurons and astrocytes, when compared to LR, BR exerted a dose-dependent cytotoxicity on self-renewing NSC. In contrast, LR had a substantial effect on the morphology of the NSC, inducing them to form highly polar rosette-like structures associated with the redistribution of specific cellular proteins (β-catenin/N-cadherin) responsible for membrane polarity. This observation was accompanied by lower expressions of NSC-specific proteins (such as SOX1, NR2F2, or PAX6) together with the upregulation of phospho-ERK. Collectively, the data indicated that both BR and LR affect early human neurodevelopment in vitro, which may have clinical relevance in phototherapy-treated hyperbilirubinemic neonates.

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It is currently challenging to adequately model the growth and migration of glioblastoma using two‐dimensional (2D) in vitro culture systems as they quickly lose the original, patient‐specific identity and heterogeneity. However, with the advent of three‐dimensional (3D) cell cultures and human‐induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)‐derived cerebral organoids (COs), studies demonstrate that the glioblastoma‐CO (GLICO) coculture model helps to preserve the phenotype of the patient‐specific tissue. Here, we aimed to set up such a model using mature COs and develop a pipeline for subsequent analysis of cocultured glioblastoma. Our data demonstrate that the growth and migration of the glioblastoma cell line within the mature COs are significantly increased in the presence of extracellular matrix proteins, shortening the time needed for glioblastoma to initiate migration. We also describe in detail the method for the visualization and quantification of these migrating cells within the GLICO model. Lastly, we show that this coculture model (and the human brain‐like microenvironment) can significantly transform the gene expression profile of the established U87 glioblastoma cell line into proneural and classical glioblastoma cell types.