Long-term calcium imaging reveals functional development in hiPSC-derived cultures comparable to human but not rat primary cultures

Estefanía Estévez-Priego, Martina Moreno-Fina, Emanuela Monni, Zaal Kokaia, Jordi Soriano, Daniel Tornero

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Models for human brain-oriented research are often established on primary cultures from rodents, which fails to recapitulate cellular specificity and molecular cues of the human brain. Here we investigated whether neuronal cultures derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) feature key advantages compared with rodent primary cultures. Using calcium fluorescence imaging, we tracked spontaneous neuronal activity in hiPSC-derived, human, and rat primary cultures and compared their dynamic and functional behavior as they matured. We observed that hiPSC-derived cultures progressively changed upon development, exhibiting gradually richer activity patterns and functional traits. By contrast, rat primary cultures were locked in the same dynamic state since activity onset. Human primary cultures exhibited features in between hiPSC-derived and rat primary cultures, although traits from the former predominated. Our study demonstrates that hiPSC-derived cultures are excellent models to investigate development in neuronal assemblies, a hallmark for applications that monitor alterations caused by damage or neurodegeneration.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)205-219
Number of pages15
JournalStem Cell Reports
Volume18
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023 Jan 10

Subject classification (UKÄ)

  • Cell and Molecular Biology

Free keywords

  • calcium imaging
  • functional connectivity
  • human cellular models
  • human iPSCs
  • neural stem cells
  • neuronal networks

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