Human spinal cord organoids with neural tube morphogenesis

초록

Spinal cord is generated by the folding of the neural plate along anterior-posterior axis via an embryonic process called neurulation. Perturbation of this process often leads to a common congenital malformation, neural tube defects, highlighting the importance to develop in vitro model recapitulating human neurulation. The advent of organoid technology, which produces 3D structure resembling parts of organs from ESCs/iPSCs, has provided ways to study human organogenesis and to model human diseases. Recently, we developed a novel organoid model that exhibits specific morphogenetic features of spinal cord development, such as neural tube formation. The human spinal cord organoids (hSCOs) exhibited tube- forming morphogenesis, and differentiation into the major types of caudal spinal-cord cells including motoneurons and glial cells. Furthermore, they exhibited the maturation of synaptic contacts and synchronized neural activities after long-term culture. In this talk, I will present an example that the hSCOs were used to highly quantifiable toxicology screen for drugs that might cause neural-tube defects. Collectively, hSCOs are useful for studying the mystery of human spinal cord development, the modelling of diseases associated with neural-tube defects.