Disease-specific iPS cell models in neuroscience

Curr Mol Med. 2013 Jun;13(5):832-41. doi: 10.2174/1566524011313050014.

Abstract

Neurodegenerative diseases are a heterogeneous group of sporadic or familial disorders of the nervous system that mostly lead to a progressive loss of neural cells. A major challenge in studying the molecular pathomechanisms underlying these disorders is the limited experimental access to disease-affected human nervous system tissue. In addition, considering that the molecular disease initiation occurs years or decades before the symptomatic onset of a medical condition, these tissues mostly reflect only the final phase of the disease. To overcome these limitations, various model systems have been established based on gain and loss-of-function studies in transformed cell lines or transgenic animal models. Although these approaches provide valuable insights into disease mechanisms and development they often lack physiological protein expression levels and a humanized context of molecular interaction partners. The generation of human induced pluripotent stem (hiPS) cells from somatic cells provides access to virtually unlimited numbers of patient-specific cells for modeling neurological disorders in vitro. In this review, we focus on the current progress made in hiPS cell-based modeling of neurodegenerative diseases and discuss recent advances in the quality assessment of hiPS cell lines.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Cell Culture Techniques / standards
  • Cells, Cultured
  • Humans
  • Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells / physiology*
  • Neurodegenerative Diseases / pathology*
  • Neurosciences
  • Reference Standards
  • Schizophrenia / pathology