Patient-specific induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) for the study and treatment of retinal degenerative diseases

Vision is the sense that we use to navigate the world around us. Thus it is not surprising that blindness is one of people's most feared maladies. Heritable diseases of the retina, such as age-related macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa, are the leading cause of blindness in the developed world, collectively affecting as many as one-third of all people over the age of 75, to some degree. For decades, scientists have dreamed of preventing vision loss or of restoring the vision of patients affected with retinal degeneration through drug therapy, gene augmentation or a cell-based transplantation approach. In this review we will discuss the use of the induced pluripotent stem cell technology to model and develop various treatment modalities for the treatment of inherited retinal degenerative disease. We will focus on the use of iPSCs for interrogation of disease pathophysiology, analysis of drug and gene therapeutics and as a source of autologous cells for cell transplantation and replacement.     

κ Opioid receptor ligands regulate angiogenesis in development and in tumours

Opioid systems mainly regulate physiological functions such as pain, emotional tone and reward circuitry in neural tissues (brain and spinal cord). These systems are also found in extraneural tissues (ganglia, gut, spleen, stomach, lung, pancreas, liver, heart, blood and blood vessels), and recent studies have elucidated their roles in various organs. The current review focuses on the roles of opioid systems in blood vessels, especially angiogenesis, during development and tumour malignancy. The balance between endogenous activators and inhibitors of angiogenesis delicately maintains a normally quiescent vasculature to sustain homeostasis. Disturbance of this balance causes pathogenic angiogenesis and, especially in tumours, several activators such as VEGF are highly expressed in the tumour microenvironment and strongly induce tumour angiogenesis, the so-called angiogenic switch. Recently, we demonstrated that κ opioid receptor agonists function as anti-angiogenic factors, which impede the angiogenic switch, in vascular development and tumour angiogenesis by inhibiting the expression of receptors for VEGF. In clinical medicine, angiogenesis inhibitors that target VEGF signalling such as bevacizumab are used as anti-cancer drugs. Although therapies that inhibit tumour angiogenesis have been highly successful for tumour therapy, most patients eventually develop resistance to this anti-angiogenic therapy. Thus, we must identify novel targets for anti-angiogenic agents to sustain inhibition of angiogenesis for tumour therapy. The regulation of responses to κ opioid receptor ligands could be useful for controlling vascular formation under physiological conditions and in cancers, and thus could offer therapeutic benefits beyond the relief of pain.

LINKED ARTICLES

This article is part of a themed section on Opioids: New Pathways to Functional Selectivity. To view the other articles in this section visit http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/bph.2015.172.issue-2     

甲基汞通过miRNA对人胚胎神经干细胞细胞周期相关基因表达的调控

[目的]通过研究甲基汞对人胚胎神经干细胞miRNA表达的影响,探讨低剂量甲基汞对神经干细胞细胞周期调控基因的调节作用. [方法]以0、10、50 nmol/L甲基汞染毒人胚胎神经干细胞24h后,用MTT法测定甲基汞对细胞活力影响,应用逆转录多聚酶链反应(RT-PCR)检测甲基汞对细胞周期调控基因(p16、p21)的mRNA的表达水平影响,利用实时荧光定量多聚酶链反应技术检测调控p16、p21的miRNA(miR-24、miR-106a)的表达情况. [结果]50 nmol/L甲基汞染毒组细胞活力降低为对照组的53.5％,差异有统计学意义(P＜0.05);p16与p21基因的mRNA表达水平随着甲基汞染毒浓度的升高而升高,差异均有统计学意义(P＜0.05),但10 nmol/L与50 nmol/L组的p16基因表达差异无统计学意义.miR-24、miR-106a的表达水平随着甲基汞染毒浓度的升高而降低,差异有统计学意义(P＜0.05). [结论]50 nmol/L的甲基汞可以引起人胚胎神经干细胞增殖抑制,并可能通过miRNA调节细胞周期调控基因的表达.     

Minimal contribution of IP3R2 in cardiac differentiation and derived ventricular-like myocytes from human embryonic stem cells

Type 2 inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate receptor (IP₃R2) regulates the intracellular Ca²⁺ release from endoplasmic reticulum in human embryonic stem cells (hESCs), cardiovascular progenitor cells (CVPCs), and mammalian cardiomyocytes. However, the role of IP₃R2 in human cardiac development is unknown and its function in mammalian cardiomyocytes is controversial. hESC-derived cardiomyocytes have unique merits in disease modeling, cell therapy, and drug screening. Therefore, understanding the role of IP₃R2 in the generation and function of human cardiomyocytes would be valuable for the application of hESC-derived cardiomyocytes. In the current study, we investigated the role of IP₃R2 in the differentiation of hESCs to cardiomyocytes and in the hESC-derived cardiomyocytes. By using IP₃R2 knockout (IP₃R2KO) hESCs, we showed that IP₃R2KO did not affect the self-renewal of hESCs as well as the differentiation ability of hESCs into CVPCs and cardiomyocytes. Furthermore, we demonstrated the ventricular-like myocyte characteristics of hESC-derived cardiomyocytes. Under the α₁-adrenergic stimulation by phenylephrine (10 μmol/L), the amplitude and maximum rate of depolarization of action potential (AP) were slightly affected in the IP₃R2KO hESC-derived cardiomyocytes at differentiation day 90, whereas the other parameters of APs and the Ca²⁺ transients did not show significant changes compared with these in the wide-type ones. These results demonstrate that IP₃R2 has minimal contribution to the differentiation and function of human cardiomyocytes derived from hESCs, thus provide the new knowledge to the function of IP₃R2 in the generation of human cardiac lineage cells and in the early cardiomyocytes.     

Differentiation in Vitro of Neural Precursor Cells From Normal and Pecanex Mutant Drosophila Embryos

Early gastrula embryos, lacking both maternally and zygotically expressed activity of the neurogenic pecanex locus, are shown to contain a greater than wild-type number of stably determined neural precursor cells which can differentiate into neurons in culture.     

拟胚体贴壁时间对小鼠胚胎干细胞心肌分化的影响

目的观察拟胚体(EB)贴壁时间对小鼠胚胎干细胞(ESC)心肌分化的影响并研究其机制。方法用悬滴培养法促进ESCs形成EBs。EBs在不同的分化天数贴壁,观察搏动EBs百分比,RT-PCR检测Nkx2.5,GATA4和β-MHC mRNA表达,Western blot检测Src家族酪氨酸激酶磷酸化水平。结果分化第3,4天贴壁组搏动EB百分比及Nkx2.5,GATA4,β-MHC表达水平显著低于分化第5,6和7天贴壁组(P<0.05);EB贴壁能够使Src激酶磷酸化水平升高,Src激酶阻断剂PP2能够抑制贴壁诱发的Src激酶磷酸化水平升高(P<0.05);对于分化第4天贴壁组,在分化第4～6天使用PP2能够增加搏动EBs百分比及β-MHC表达水平(P<0.05)。结论 EB贴壁时间是影响ESC心肌分化的一个重要因素。在分化第4天或者之前贴壁可以显著抑制心肌分化,其机制可能是EB贴壁激活了Src激酶。     

Antitumor Effect of Embryonic Stem Cells in a Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Model: Antitumor Factors and Immune Responses

Research in recent years has revealed that embryonic stem cells (ESCs) could generate obvious antitumor effects in both vitro and vivo. In vitro, ESCs could secrete soluble factors that are capable of blocking cancer cells proliferation, moreover, embryonic microenvironments could effectively inhibit tumorigenesis and metastasis; while in vivo, administration of ESCs in tumor-bearing mice could generate significant antitumor effects by indirectly activating the antitumor immune system. In this study, non-small cell lung cancer cells (Lewis Lung Carcinoma cells, LLCs) and ESCs were co-injected together into mice, after that subcutaneous tumor growth was monitored, cellular and humoral immune responses were detected, and different control groups were set to compare the results in different conditions. Our results suggested that compared to be injected alone, ESCs co-injected with cancer cells could inhibit cancer cell growth more efficiently in vivo, with more CD8+ lymphocytes generated in both peripheral circulation and spleen, and with higher serum anticancer cytokine level (interleukin (IL)-2 and interferon (IFN)-γ). We conclude that the boosted antitumor effects induced by ESCs and cancer cells co-injection may be both the effects of antitumor factors secreted by ESCs and immune responses induced by ESCs in vivo.     

Complementary functions of ATM and H2AX in development and suppression of genomic instability

Upon DNA damage, histone H2AX is phosphorylated by ataxia-telangiectasia mutated (ATM) and other phosphoinositide 3-kinase-related protein kinases. To elucidate further the potential overlapping and unique functions of ATM and H2AX, we asked whether they have synergistic functions in the development and maintenance of genomic stability by inactivating both genes in mouse germ line. Combined ATM/H2AX deficiency caused embryonic lethality and dramatic cellular genomic instability. Mechanistically, severe genomic instability in the double-deficient cells is associated with a requirement for H2AX to repair oxidative DNA damage resulting from ATM deficiency. We discuss these findings in the context of synergies between ATM and other repair factors.