Modeling and Targeting Neuroglial Interactions with Human Pluripotent Stem Cell Models

Abstract

Generation of relevant and robust models for neurological disorders is of main importance for both target identification and drug discovery. The non-cell autonomous effects of glial cells on neurons have been described in a broad range of neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental disorders, pointing to neuroglial interactions as novel alternative targets for therapeutics development. Interestingly, the recent breakthrough discovery of human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) has opened a new road for studying neurological and neurodevelopmental disorders "in a dish". Here, we provide an overview of the generation and modeling of both neuronal and glial cells from human iPSCs and a brief synthesis of recent work investigating neuroglial interactions using hiPSCs in a pathophysiological context.

Keywords: astrocytes; human pluripotent stem cells; microglia; neuroglial interactions; neurons; pathological modeling.

Figure 1

Overview of neuronal and non-neuronal cell production from human iPSCs.