California's Stem Cell Agency

In Year 02 of this grant, we have continued to refine the techniques developed for producing nerve cells from human embryonic stem cells (hESC). Central to our grant proposal is the expression of an active form of a protein called MEF2C, which we insert into the stem cells at a young age. MEF2C is a transcription factor, which is a molecule that regulates how RNA is converted to a protein. MEF2C regulates the production of proteins that are specifically found in neurons, and it plays an important role in making a stem cell into a nerve cell. Specific improvements this year in culture conditions have resulted in our being able to direct a much higher percentage of hESCs into precursors of nerve cells, and it is at this stage that the cells are most appropriate for insertion of MEF2C. Following this, we can transplant the stem cells, destined to become nerve cells, in to the brain in rodent models of stroke and Parkinson’s disease. We have also made very good progress in producing dopaminergic nerve cells, the specific type of cell that dies in Parkinson’s disease. In addition, our improved methods are completely free of any animal products, so they represent a step forward in developing cells as a treatment for human diseases. Building upon these advances in our techniques, we have transplanted cells into a rat model of Parkinson’s disease and shown that a large percentage of the cells become dopaminergic nerve cells in the brain. Additionally, rats receiving these cell transplants show greater improvements in motor skills compared to rats receiving similar cells without the inserted MEF2C factor. These findings complement our results presented in the first year’s progress report showing that transplantation of these MEF2C-expressing cells into a mouse model of stroke resulted in less damage to the brain. Together these results indicate the utility and versatility of these cells “programmed” by expression of the inserted MEF2C gene. Finally, in Year 02 we report on our efforts to discover the mechanism by which the MEF2C gene prevents cell death and drives stem cells to become nerve cells. We have performed microarray analyses, which measure the expression levels of various genes, e.g., how much of each protein is produced from a gene. This approach includes 24,000 of the possible ~30,000 gene sequences expressed in human cells and tissues. These experiments were performed on stem cells with the inserted MEF2C gene just as the cells were making the decision to become a nerve cell. We observed a decrease in the activity of several genes that are known to make stem cells proliferate (divide and multiply), rather than becoming a differentiated nerve cell. This finding is consistent with the known role of MEF2C, which causes cells to stop proliferating and start differentiating into nerve cells. Without insertion of MEF2C into the stem cells, they mostly continue proliferating. We also saw that many genes, which are not expressed in mature nerve cells, were coordinately down regulated. These results may suggest a new role of MEF2C as a factor for shutting down gene expression, thereby helping to promote the formation of new nerve cells. We are continuing our investigations into the mechanism of MEF2C actions in neuronal differentiation and function as well as our transplantation experiments in stroke and Parkinson’s disease models in the coming year.

Our goals for this grant were to determine the role of the transcription factor MEF2C in neurogenesis, including all of the targets of this factor in the genome, use this knowledge to direct differentiation of human embryonic stem cells (hESC) into specific types of neurons, and investigate the transplantation of these cells into rodent models of Parkinson’s disease (PD) and stroke. During the tenure of this grant, we accomplished these goals to a very significant degree. Our investigations into the role of MEF2C in neurogenesis produced a large body of knowledge pertinent to its essential role in this process. This knowledge base was achieved through both monitoring expression levels of MEF2C during the entire process of neurogenesis and by knocking down its expression by use of siRNA. We now have a very detailed view of the temporal contribution of MEF2C as stem cells differentiate into neurons. Using this knowledge, we optimized a differentiation protocol for directing hESC into neuronal precursor cells and then initiated expression of a constitutively active MEF2 transcription factor (MEF2CA) via lentiviral technology. We discovered that the forced expression of MEF2CA provided a strong bias to neurons to differentiate along a dopaminergic (DA) lineage. Our network analysis for MEF2C confirmed that many of the known effector proteins for DA neurons are indeed targets for this transcription factor. Histological and electrophysiological investigations into the nature of these cells grown in vitro showed that they are indeed functional neurons displaying the anticipated qualities during the various stages of differentiation. Our in vivo transplantation studies have been equally productive. Owing to the strong tendency of the MEF2CA-expressing cells to differentiate into DA neurons, we first investigated their effects on a rat PD model where the dopaminergic cells of the substantia nigra are ablated on one side of the brain by injection of 6-hydroxydopamine. In response to an injection of the dopamine analog apomorphine, these rats will turn in a circle and the readout is the number of turns in a 30 minute period measured on a rotometer. Fewer turns indicate that the rat has less pathology, i.e., is getting better. We transplanted hESC-derived neural progenitor cells (hESC-NPC) either expressing MEF2CA or not and monitored recovery of the rats. While rats receiving both preparations of stem cells showed considerable improvement, the ones receiving MEF2C-expressing cells did significantly better on the rotometer. Also, histologically the MEF2CA-expressing cells could all be seen to differentiate, whereas those that did not express MEF2CA were often found in an undifferentiated state, which potentially posses a problem of continuing proliferation in the brain and tumor formation. Thus, the forced expression of MEF2CA forced the cells to differentiate and prevented uncontrolled cell division. An additional advantage was that the remaining endogenous DA neurons showed much greater density of fibers in the vicinity of the transplanted cells, suggesting that there was an additional benefit of factor secretion. Thus, the MEF2CA genetically modified cells appear to have significant advantages for transplantation for PD. We are also investigating the use of the MEF2CA-expressing hESC-NPC in rat and mouse models of stroke. Preliminary data shows that in both systems we see behavioral improvements following the transplantations with these cells. In the period of the no cost extension, we will complete these studies and characterize the types of neurons these transplanted cells become and their role in reversing the pathology caused by the brain ischemia from stroke. Our hypothesis is that there is a strong bias toward the DA neuron phenotype produced by the expression of MEF2CA, but that this is overridden by the context within the brain. Therefore, in a stroke model, the context of damage to the cortex provides signals to the newly transplanted cells that they should migrate to the damaged area and become cells appropriate to that region, not DA neurons. We will test this hypothesis in the remaining months of the grant.