DERIVATION OF FUNCTIONAL SPINAL CORD NEURONS FROM INDUCED PLURIPOTENT STEM CELLS (iPSCs)
Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are a class of pluripotent stem cells which are derived from somatic cells by reprogramming in the laboratory conditions. Although induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are promising cell sources for cell therapy, ethical and physiological problems of using iPSCs have not been solved yet. Therefore, the identification of alternative and safe progenitor cells prior to terminally differentiated cells is important to control differentiation capacity in cellular therapy. Motor neuron diseases are fatal, chronic, and progressive diseases that occur by destroying motor neurons. Here, we demonstrated the generation of functional motor neurons from iPSC derived NMPs using an ex vivo differentiation protocol. Spinal cord motor neurons were characterized by morphological analysis, ICC and qPCR. We examined the function of motor neurons by measurement of the calcium influx. Calcium is the important ion to transmit signals that are detected by Fluo-4 staining. Additionally, the main motor neuron function is the establishment of neuromuscular junctions. iPSCs derived SC neurons and myogenic cells were cocultured and neuromuscular junction formation was characterized. Protein profile of cultured neurons showed that hierarchical cluster analysis of day 35 neurons and day 15 neurons are more closely. Additionally, the expression of genes found in nervous system was increased at day 10, day 15 and day 35 spinal cord neurons. The outputs can be constituted as preclinical data for the treatment of the diseases caused by neuron damages including spinal cord injury and motor neuron diseases.