TY - JOUR
KW - CRISPR-Cas
KW - disease modeling
KW - HA-tag
KW - Membrane localization
KW - Stem cell–derived sensory neurons
AU - Yi Liu
AU - Rachna Balaji
AU - Marcelo A. Szymanski de Toledo
AU - Sabrina Ernst
AU - Petra Hautvast
AU - Aylin B. Kesdoğan
AU - Jannis Körner
AU - Martin Zenke
AU - Anika Neureiter
AU - Angelika Lampert
AB - Human-induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) are efficiently differentiated into sensory neurons. These cells express the voltage-gated sodium channel NaV1.7, which is a validated pain target. NaV1.7 deficiency leads to pain insensitivity, whereas NaV1.7 gain-of-function mutants are associated with chronic pain. During differentiation, the sensory neurons start spontaneous action potential firing around day 22, with increasing firing rate until day 40. Here, we used CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing to generate a HA-tag NaV1.7 to follow its expression during differentiation. We used two protocols to generate sensory neurons: the classical small molecule approach and a directed differentiation methodology and assessed surface NaV1.7 expression by Airyscan high-resolution microscopy. Our results show that maturation of at least 49 days is necessary to observe robust NaV1.7 surface expression in both protocols. Electric activity of the sensory neurons precedes NaV1.7 surface expression. A clinically effective NaV1.7 blocker is still missing, and we expect this iPS cell model system to be useful for drug discovery and disease modeling.
BT - Pflügers Archiv - European Journal of Physiology
DA - 2024-06-01
DO - 10.1007/s00424-024-02945-w
LA - en
N2 - Human-induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) are efficiently differentiated into sensory neurons. These cells express the voltage-gated sodium channel NaV1.7, which is a validated pain target. NaV1.7 deficiency leads to pain insensitivity, whereas NaV1.7 gain-of-function mutants are associated with chronic pain. During differentiation, the sensory neurons start spontaneous action potential firing around day 22, with increasing firing rate until day 40. Here, we used CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing to generate a HA-tag NaV1.7 to follow its expression during differentiation. We used two protocols to generate sensory neurons: the classical small molecule approach and a directed differentiation methodology and assessed surface NaV1.7 expression by Airyscan high-resolution microscopy. Our results show that maturation of at least 49 days is necessary to observe robust NaV1.7 surface expression in both protocols. Electric activity of the sensory neurons precedes NaV1.7 surface expression. A clinically effective NaV1.7 blocker is still missing, and we expect this iPS cell model system to be useful for drug discovery and disease modeling.
PY - 2024
SP - 975
EP - 992
T2 - Pflügers Archiv - European Journal of Physiology
TI - The pain target NaV1.7 is expressed late during human iPS cell differentiation into sensory neurons as determined in high-resolution imaging
UR - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00424-024-02945-w
VL - 476
Y2 - 2024-08-13
SN - 1432-2013
ER -