Mount Sinai researchers develop library of human induced pluripotent stem cells from healthy humans

Mount Sinai Researchers Develop Library of Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells from Healthy Humans;
Resource Guide Supports Understanding of Disease Modeling and Drug Responses

Paper Title: A Library of Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells from Clinically Well-Characterized, Diverse Health Human Individuals

Journal: Stem Cell Reports, November 4, 2021

Authors: Christoph Schaniel, PhD, Assistant Professor of Medicine (Hematology and Medical Oncology) and Cell, Developmental & Regenerative Biology in the Black Family Stem Cell Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, and other coauthors.

Bottom Line: Scientists at Mount Sinai have created a library of well-characterized human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC) lines from clinically healthy humans, which can serve as a valuable resource of normal controls for in vitro human development, genotype-phenotype association studies, many disease models, and drug response evaluations.

How It Works: This gender-balanced, racially- and ethnically-diverse library of hiPSC lines was generated from 40 clinically healthy male and female individuals ages 22 to 61. Extensive characterization of the hiPSCs matched the karyotype and short tandem repeat identity to their parental fibroblasts. The generated hiPSCs show a transcription profile characteristic of pluripotent stem cells. Whole genome sequencing, which was performed on one hiPSC clone from each individual, was used for genomic ancestry determination and analysis of Mendelian disease genes and risks.

In addition, similar transcriptomic profiles, single-cell RNA-seq derived cell clusters, and physiology of cardiomyocytes differentiated from multiple independent hiPSC lines are characterized in the library.

Why the Research Is Interesting: The research is an important technology development of accurate cell-based models that can be used for drug discovery and predicting adverse drug effects. While the study generating the cell lines has no direct impact on patient care or treatment, the library can support rigorous disease modeling, accurate evaluation of patient responses to drugs, and future genotype-phenotype association studies.

Said Mount Sinai's Dr. Christoph Schaniel of the research:
This library of hiPSCs from clinically well-characterized, diverse healthy human individuals is being used for research on normal human biology, evaluating drug responses and disease modeling. These cell lines will be very useful controls in studying various disease models in organoids. Our diverse hiPSCs library contributes a valuable resource to the scientific community for a broad variety of forthcoming biomedical and pharmacological research. The iPSCs lines are available to the scientific community upon request.

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View the full paper here. To schedule an interview with Dr. Schaniel, please contact the Mount Sinai Press Office at stacy.anderson@mountsinai.org or 347-346-3390. 

Note: The Mount Sinai team collaborated with investigators at the University of Miami, St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital, the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, and Sema4 on the study. This work was supported by NIH Common Fund LINCS program awards U54HG008098 and U54HL127624, as well as funds from Sema4.