July 1, 2022
Keio University School of Medicine
A research group led by I-Hsiu Sung (a student in the Doctoral Programs of the Graduate School of Medicine) and Professor Hideyuki Okano of the Department of Physiology, Keio University School of Medicine, has developed a new, highly efficient method for inducing the differentiation of microglia, the only resident immune cells in the central nervous system, from human iPS cells.
The central nervous system (CNS), which consists of the brain and spinal cord, contains immune cells called microglia that play a crucial role in maintaining homeostasis. Microglia have various functions specific to the CNS, such as removing dead cells, promoting the maintenance and differentiation of other nervous system cells, and suppressing excessive neural activity.
In recent years, microglia have attracted worldwide attention in the field of neurological disease research, as it has been reported that causative or risk genes for CNS diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementia are highly expressed in microglia. It has also been reported that microglia influence the progression of these diseases.
In this study, the research group developed a highly efficient method for inducing the differentiation of microglia from human iPS cells through the overexpression of a single transcription factor and established an analysis model for CNS diseases using human microglia. The microglia generated by this method were evaluated for their gene expression profiles and physiological functions and were confirmed to have properties similar to those of microglia in the human brain. This achievement is expected to be applied to drug discovery research and the development of therapeutic methods for numerous neurological diseases caused by microglia.
The results of this research were published on July 1, 2022 (UK time), in the international scientific journal Inflammation and Regeneration .
Please see below for the full press release.