Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2015

College/Unit

Eberly College of Arts and Sciences

Department/Program/Center

Biochemistry

Abstract

In vitro disease modeling based on induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) provides a powerful system to study cellular pathophysiology, especially in combination with targeted genome editing and protocols to differentiate iPSCs into affected cell types. In this study, we established zinc-finger nuclease-mediated genome editing in primary fibroblasts and iPSCs generated from a mouse model for radiosensitive severe combined immunodeficiency (RS-SCID), a rare disorder characterized by cellular sensitivity to radiation and the absence of lymphocytes due to impaired DNA-dependent protein kinase (DNA-PK) activity. Our results demonstrate that gene editing in RS-SCID fibroblasts rescued DNA-PK dependent signaling to overcome radiosensitivity. Furthermore, in vitro T-cell differentiation from iPSCs was employed to model the stage-specific T-cell maturation block induced by the disease causing mutation. Genetic correction of the RS-SCID iPSCs restored T-lymphocyte maturation, polyclonal V(D)J recombination of the T-cell receptor followed by successful beta-selection. In conclusion, we provide proof that iPSC-based in vitro T-cell differentiation is a valuable paradigm for SCID disease modeling, which can be utilized to investigate disorders of T-cell development and to validate gene therapy strategies for T-cell deficiencies. Moreover, this study emphasizes the significance of designer nucleases as a tool for generating isogenic disease models and their future role in producing autologous, genetically corrected transplants for various clinical applications.

Source Citation

Rahman, S. H., Kuehle, J., Reimann, C., Mlambo, T., Alzubi, J., Maeder, M. L., Riedel, H., Fisch, P., Cantz, T., Rudolph, C., Mussolino, C., Joung, J. K., Schambach, A., & Cathomen, T. (2015). Rescue of DNA-PK Signaling and T-Cell Differentiation by Targeted Genome Editing in a prkdc Deficient iPSC Disease Model. PLOS Genetics, 11(5), e1005239. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1005239

Comments

© 2015 Rahman et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

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