title: Transplantation of human induced cerebellar granular-like cells improves motor functions in a novel mouse model of cerebellar ataxia.
abstract: Stem cell-based reparative approaches have been applied to cerebellum-related disorders during the last two decades. Direct lineage reprogramming of human fibroblasts into functional granular neurons holds great promise for biomedical applications such as cerebellum regeneration and cellbased disease modeling. In the present study, we showed that a combination of Ascl1, Sox2 and OCT4, in a culture subsequently treated with secreted factors (BMP4, Wnt3a and FGF8b), was capable of converting human fibroblasts from the scalp tissue of patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI) into functional human induced cerebellar granular-like cells (hiCGCs). Morphological analysis, immunocytochemistry, gene expression and electrophysiological analysis were performed to identify the similarity of induced neuronal cells to human cerebellum granular cells. Our strategy improved the efficiency for hiCGCs induction, which gave the highest conversion efficiency 12.30±0.88%, and Ath1(+)/Tuj1(+) double positive cells to 5.56±0.80%. We transplanted hiCGCs into the cerebellum of Nmyc(TRE/TRE): tTS mice, a novel mouse model of cerebellar ataxia, and demonstrated that the hiCGCs were able to survive, migrate, proliferate and promote mild functional recovery after been grafted into cerebellum.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, Huashan Hospital, Fudan UniversityShanghai 200040, China; National Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology, Institutes of Brain Science, Shanghai Medical College, Fudan UniversityShanghai 200032, China.
authors.forename: Tongming
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, Huashan Hospital, Fudan UniversityShanghai 200040, China; National Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology, Institutes of Brain Science, Shanghai Medical College, Fudan UniversityShanghai 200032, China.
authors.forename: Hailiang
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, Huashan Hospital, Fudan UniversityShanghai 200040, China; National Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology, Institutes of Brain Science, Shanghai Medical College, Fudan UniversityShanghai 200032, China.
authors.forename: Yiwen
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, Huashan Hospital, Fudan UniversityShanghai 200040, China; National Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology, Institutes of Brain Science, Shanghai Medical College, Fudan UniversityShanghai 200032, China.
authors.forename: Qisheng
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, Huashan Hospital, Fudan UniversityShanghai 200040, China; National Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology, Institutes of Brain Science, Shanghai Medical College, Fudan UniversityShanghai 200032, China.
authors.forename: Luping
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, Huashan Hospital, Fudan UniversityShanghai 200040, China; National Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology, Institutes of Brain Science, Shanghai Medical College, Fudan UniversityShanghai 200032, China.
authors.forename: Zhifu
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, Huashan Hospital, Fudan UniversityShanghai 200040, China; National Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology, Institutes of Brain Science, Shanghai Medical College, Fudan UniversityShanghai 200032, China.
authors.forename: Ping
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, Huashan Hospital, Fudan UniversityShanghai 200040, China; National Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology, Institutes of Brain Science, Shanghai Medical College, Fudan UniversityShanghai 200032, China.
authors.forename: Feng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, Huashan Hospital, Fudan UniversityShanghai 200040, China; National Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology, Institutes of Brain Science, Shanghai Medical College, Fudan UniversityShanghai 200032, China.
authors.forename: Jianhong
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhu
keywords: Lineage reprogramming; cerebellar ataxia; cerebellum granular cells