Phenotypic differences in hiPSC NPCs derived from patients with schizophrenia

Mol Psychiatry. 2015 Mar;20(3):361-8. doi: 10.1038/mp.2014.22. Epub 2014 Apr 1.

Abstract

Consistent with recent reports indicating that neurons differentiated in vitro from human-induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) are immature relative to those in the human brain, gene expression comparisons of our hiPSC-derived neurons to the Allen BrainSpan Atlas indicate that they most resemble fetal brain tissue. This finding suggests that, rather than modeling the late features of schizophrenia (SZ), hiPSC-based models may be better suited for the study of disease predisposition. We now report that a significant fraction of the gene signature of SZ hiPSC-derived neurons is conserved in SZ hiPSC neural progenitor cells (NPCs). We used two independent discovery-based approaches-microarray gene expression and stable isotope labeling by amino acids in cell culture (SILAC) quantitative proteomic mass spectrometry analyses-to identify cellular phenotypes in SZ hiPSC NPCs from four SZ patients. From our findings that SZ hiPSC NPCs show abnormal gene expression and protein levels related to cytoskeletal remodeling and oxidative stress, we predicted, and subsequently observed, aberrant migration and increased oxidative stress in SZ hiPSC NPCs. These reproducible NPC phenotypes were identified through scalable assays that can be applied to expanded cohorts of SZ patients, making them a potentially valuable tool with which to study the developmental mechanisms contributing to SZ.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Animals
  • Antipsychotic Agents / pharmacology
  • Cell Differentiation / drug effects
  • Cell Differentiation / physiology*
  • Cell Movement
  • Cells, Cultured
  • Female
  • Gene Expression / physiology
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Mice
  • Mice, Inbred C57BL
  • Mice, Transgenic
  • Mitochondria / drug effects
  • Mitochondria / pathology
  • Neural Cell Adhesion Molecules / genetics
  • Neural Cell Adhesion Molecules / metabolism
  • Neural Stem Cells / drug effects
  • Neural Stem Cells / metabolism*
  • Oxidative Stress / physiology
  • Phenotype
  • Pluripotent Stem Cells / drug effects
  • Pluripotent Stem Cells / physiology*
  • Prosencephalon / pathology*
  • Proteomics
  • Reactive Oxygen Species / metabolism
  • Schizophrenia / pathology*
  • Young Adult

Substances

  • Antipsychotic Agents
  • Neural Cell Adhesion Molecules
  • Reactive Oxygen Species