Devansh Agarwal, Nicholas Dash, Kevin W Mazo, Manan Chopra, Maria P Avila, Amit Patel, Ryan M Wong, Cairang Jia, Hope Do, Jie Cheng, Colette Chiang, Shawna L Jurlina, Mona Roshan, Michael W Perry, Jong M Rho, Risa Broyer, Cassidy D Lee, Robert N Weinreb, Cezar Gavrilovici, Nicholas W Oesch, Derek S Welsbie, Karl J Wahlin
In optic neuropathies, including glaucoma, retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) die. Cell transplantation and endogenous regeneration offer strategies for retinal repair, however, developmental programs required for this to succeed are incompletely understood. To address this, we explored cellular reprogramming with transcription factor (TF) regulators of RGC development which were integrated into human pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) as inducible gene cassettes. When the pioneer factor NEUROG2 was combined with RGC-expressed TFs (ATOH7, ISL1, and POU4F2) some conversion was observed and when pre-patterned by BMP inhibition, RGC-like induced neurons (RGC-iNs) were generated with high efficiency in just under a week...
September 29, 2023: NPJ Regenerative Medicine