Profiling of vascular organoid endothelial cells and pericytes from iPS cells

Diabetes is prevalent worldwide and associated with severe health complications, including blood vessel damage that leads to cardiovascular disease and death. Here we report the development of a 3D blood vessel organoid culture system from human pluripotent stem cells. These human blood vessel organoids contain endothelial cells and pericytes that self-assemble into interconnected capillary networks enveloped by a basement membrane. Human blood vessel organoids transplanted into mice form a stable, perfused human vascular tree, including human arteries, arterioles and venules. Exposure of blood vessel organoids to hyperglycemia and inflammatory cytokines in vitro induced thickening of the basal membrane, a hallmark of human diabetic microangiopathy. Human blood vessel, exposed in vivo to a diabetic milieu in mice, also mimick the microvascular changes in diabetic patients. We finally performed a drug screen and uncovered ?-secretase and DLL4-Notch3 as key drivers of “diabetic” vasculopathy in human blood vessels in vitro and in vivo. Thus, organoids derived from human stem cells faithfully recapitulate the structure and function of human blood vessels and are amenable to model and identify drug targets for diabetic vasculopathy, which affects hundreds of millions of patients. Overall design: Vascular organoids were differentiated from iPSC cells and cultured in control, diabetic or diabetic media supplemented with the gamma-secretase inhibitor DAPT. Endothelial cells (CD31 positive) and pericytes (PDGFRbeta positive) were isolated by FACS and subjected to RNA Seq. Accordingly, CD31 positive endothelial cells and PDGFRbeta positive pericytes differentiated from iPS cells in 2D as a well as primary endothelial (HUVECS) and pericytes (Placenta) were FACS sorted and subjected to RNA Seq.

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Wimmer RA, Leopoldi A, Aichinger M, Wick N, Hantusch B, Novatchkova M, Taubenschmid J, Hämmerle M, Esk C, Bagley JA, Lindenhofer D, Chen G, Boehm M, Agu CA, Yang F, Fu B, Zuber J, Knoblich JA, Kerjaschki D, Penninger JM