TY - JOUR
T1 - Direct reprogramming of Huntington's disease patient fibroblasts into neuron-like cells leads to abnormal neurite outgrowth, increased cell death, and aggregate formation
AU - Liu, Yanying
AU - Xue, Yuanchao
AU - Ridley, Samantha
AU - Zhang, Dong
AU - Rezvani, Khosrow
AU - Fu, Xiang Dong
AU - Wang, Hongmin
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2014 Liu et al.
PY - 2014/10/2
Y1 - 2014/10/2
N2 - Recent advances in trans-differentiation of one type cell to another have made it possible to directly convert Huntington's disease (HD) patient fibroblasts into neurons by modulation of cell-lineage-specific transcription factors or RNA processing. However, this possibility has not been examined. Here, we demonstrate that HD patient-derived fibroblasts can be directly trans-differentiated into neuron-like cells by knockdown of the expression of a single gene encoding the polypyrimidine-tract-binding protein. The directly converted HD neuron-like cells were positive in expression of Tuj1, NeuN, DARPP-32, and c-aminobutyric acid and exhibited neuritic breakdown, abnormal neuritic branching, increased cell death, and aggregation of mutant huntingtin. These observations indicate that the neuron-like cells directly converted from HD patient fibroblasts recapitulate the major aspects of neuropathological characteristics of HD and thus provide an additional model for understanding the disorder and validation of therapeutic reagents.
AB - Recent advances in trans-differentiation of one type cell to another have made it possible to directly convert Huntington's disease (HD) patient fibroblasts into neurons by modulation of cell-lineage-specific transcription factors or RNA processing. However, this possibility has not been examined. Here, we demonstrate that HD patient-derived fibroblasts can be directly trans-differentiated into neuron-like cells by knockdown of the expression of a single gene encoding the polypyrimidine-tract-binding protein. The directly converted HD neuron-like cells were positive in expression of Tuj1, NeuN, DARPP-32, and c-aminobutyric acid and exhibited neuritic breakdown, abnormal neuritic branching, increased cell death, and aggregation of mutant huntingtin. These observations indicate that the neuron-like cells directly converted from HD patient fibroblasts recapitulate the major aspects of neuropathological characteristics of HD and thus provide an additional model for understanding the disorder and validation of therapeutic reagents.
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U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0109621
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0109621
M3 - Article
C2 - 25275533
AN - SCOPUS:84907487775
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 9
JO - PloS one
JF - PloS one
IS - 10
M1 - e109621
ER -