The retina is an internal photosensitive neural tunic which absorbs light and prevents it from reflecting back. The light receptors and neurons of the retina are initial processor of visual information. Various anomalies of the retina such as retinitis pigmentosa, cone-rod dystrophy to retinal degenerative diseases cause severe loss of vision since they affect photoreceptors directly or indirectly. Conventional therapies have never been fully successful in restoring vision in such diseases. However current research in stem cell therapies has shown remarkable potential. In this project, induced pluripotent stem cells from mouse were coxed into photoreceptor fate in presence and absence of Dorsomorphin using specific media in a stepwise differentiation process. Dorsomorphin is an inhibitor of Bone Morphogenic Protein (BMP) whose suppression may influence neural differentiation. Studies were done using conventional inverted microscopy and fluorescent microscopy on mouse induced pluripotent stem cells (miPS cells). Immunolabelling techniques involving Pax6, Crx, RPE65, Rhodopsin and Opsin were used to evaluate the advantage of these as markers for stem cells differentiation. Reverse Transcriptase PCR was done to confirm the gene expression on the differentiated cells. Human iPS derived Mesenchymal stem cells were cultured and the effect of different concentrations of Retinoic Acid such as 0mM, 0.1mM and 0.5mM on cell proliferation was tested in both presence and absence of Dorsomorphin. The results revealed both control and Dorsomorphin treated miPS cells successfully differentiated into photoreceptors-like cells as detected by positive staining of Rhodopsin and Opsin. The cells were however negative for Pax6, and very weak staining for RPE and Crx. The presence or absence of Dorsomorphin did not make any difference on miPS differentiation. The same observation was made on differentiating human iPS-MSC where Dorsomorphin did not reveal much effect. However highest cell count of proliferating cells was observed in the subgroups containing 0.1mM Retinoic Acid on Day7 groups as control had an average of 590 ±±317.23 and treatment 1206 .33 ±±114.99 cells, with statistical significance of P<0.05. It appears that the presence of Retinoic Acid facilitated the proliferation of human iPS-MSC. In conclusion, the study reveals that iPS can be another potential stem cell source for therapies of retinal diseases involving photoreceptors where the question of ethical issue is not a problem unlike embryonic stem cells. Also it reveals the concentration of Retinoic Acid most suited for human iPS-MSC cell proliferation. Dorsomorphin did not seem to have much effect on either type of stem cells in terms of promoting photoreceptor differentiation. / published_or_final_version / Medicine / Master / Master of Medical Sciences

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / In order to develop effective cures for diseases and decipher disease pathology, the need exists to cultivate a better understanding of human development. Existing studies employ the use of animal models to study and model human development and disease phenotypes but the evolutionary differences between humans and other species slightly limit the applicability of such animal models to effectively recapitulate human development. With the development of human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs), including Human induced Pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) and Human Embryonic Stem cells (hESCs), human development can now be mirrored and recapitulated in vitro. These stem cells are pluripotent, that is, they possess the potential to generate any cell type of the body including muscle cells, nerve cells or blood cells. One of the major focuses of this study is to use hiPSCs to better understand and model human retinogenesis. The retina develops within the first three months of human development, hence rendering it inaccessible to investigation via traditional methods. However, with the advent of hiPSCs, retinal cells can be generated in a culture dish and the mechanisms underlying the specification of a retinal fate can be determined. Additionally, in order to use hiPSCs for successful cell replacement therapy, non-xenogeneic conditions need to be employed to allow for fruitful transplantation tests. Hence, another emphasis of this study has been to direct hiPSCs to generate retinal cells under non-xenogeneic conditions to facilitate their use for future translation purposes.