PhD Candidate Sungkyunkwan University, Kyonggi-do, Republic of Korea
Abstract: The potential of induced pluripotent cells (hiPSCs) has opened new opportunities in disease modeling, drug discovery, and cell-based therapies. Despite advances in protocol development, creating functional tissues has always been a challenge. Replicating their natural environment and experiences within the human body has proved difficult. The development of iPSC-based culture systems has brought us closer to biomimicking systems, but there are still gaps that need to be overcome. Since electrogenic cells function based on electrical conduction, understanding the parameters for differentiation and maturation of hiPSC-derived cells has always been a challenge. To overcome these huddles, we have developed a cell culture platform in which mechanical and electrical stimulations can be applied during or after differentiation of hiPSCs. For example, we demonstrated that hiPSC-derived cardiac cells subjected to electrical and mechanical co-stimulation were maturated more efficiently. As an extension, in this study, we aimed to understand the effect of electrical and mechanical stimulations on the differentiation of iPSC-derived Neural Stem Cells (NSCs). We first differentiated iPSCs into NSCs and then subjected these iPSC-derived NSCs to various electrical and mechanical (stretching) stimulations. We then analyzed the effect of these stimulations using various post-simulation analyses to understand the resulting neuronal network's composition. We found that different stimulation conditions affected the composition of supporting and neuronal cells with different neurotransmitter receptors. We were able to identify astrocytes, acetylcholine, dopaminergic, and even GABAergic networks. Mechanical stretching further facilitated the arrangement and rearrangement of the structure, opening possibilities to explore interactions between other neurons. Further exploration in this approach will help us develop in vitro neural networks for drug studies, disease modeling, and cell-based therapies.
