The relevance of mitochondrial DNA variants fluctuation during reprogramming and neuronal differentiation of human iPSCs

Summary

The generation of inducible pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) is a revolutionary technique allowing production of pluripotent patient-specific cell lines used for disease modeling, drug screening, and cell therapy. Integrity of nuclear DNA (nDNA) is mandatory to allow iPSCs utilization, while quality control of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is rarely included in the iPSCs validation process. In this study, we performed mtDNA deep sequencing during the transition from parental fibroblasts to reprogrammed iPSC and to differentiated neuronal precursor cells (NPCs) obtained from controls and patients affected by mitochondrial disorders. At each step, mtDNA variants, including those potentially pathogenic, fluctuate between emerging and disappearing, and some having functional implications. We strongly recommend including mtDNA analysis as an unavoidable assay to obtain fully certified usable iPSCs and NPCs. Copyright © 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Authors Palombo F, Peron C, Caporali L, Iannielli A, Maresca A, Di Meo I, Fiorini C, Segnali A, Sciacca FL, Rizzo A, Levi S, Suomalainen A, Prigione A, Broccoli V, Carelli V, Tiranti V
Journal Stem cell reports
Publication Date 2021 Aug 10;16(8):1953-1967
PubMed 34329598
PubMed Central PMC8365099
DOI 10.1016/j.stemcr.2021.06.016

Research Projects

Cell Lines