Germany: Scientists in Dusseldorf develop light-sensitive 'mini brains' in lab conditions

A team of researchers have developed mini-brains with ir own sets of eyes in a lab setting, according to recent research published on August 17 in medical journal Cell Stem Cell. According to researchers, y have used human induced pluripotent stem cells to generate brain organoids.

It is worth noting that lab-me mini-brains were developed at University Hospital Dusseldorf. It is same university where scientists created small beating hearts and mini-brains that produce brain waves. According to researchers, scientists h earlier grown Mini Brainsoptic cups individually in lab settings but this is first time when brain organoids expressed retina and eye-related genes (eye-like structures).

However, it did not develop into visible optic vesicles as presumed by researchers.

"We, refore, modified our protocol, starting with a low-density cell number. Our intention was not to force development of purely neural cell s at earliest stages of organoid differentiation," said researchers. 

To furr delineate differential gene expression and cellular diversity, researchers generated and compared transcriptome of early brain organoids (with primordial eye fields) with those of OVB-organoids using bulk mRNA sequencing.

Differential gene expression analysis revealed 4,000 genes with significantly changing mRNA

y noticed two defined subgroups contributing up to 80% of observed sample distance corresponding to OVB-organoids and early brain organoids. Differential gene expression analysis revealed 4,000 genes with significantly changing mRNA levels in OVB-organoids than early brain organoids.

Of se, 3/4th were upregulated and probably signified activation of developmental pathway, leing to optic vesicle formation. This interpretation was substantiated by affinity propagation clustering to identify gene signatures from differentially expressed genes, resulting in 75 sub-clusters grouped into nine super-clusters showing distinct molecular pathways.

Lab-Me Mini Brains would help in creating personalized retinal cell

“Our work highlights remarkable ability of brain organoids to generate primitive sensory structures that are light sensitive and harbour cell s similar to those found in body,” said Jay Gopalakrishnan, of University Hospital Dusseldorf and le author of study.

y said that recent development would help scientists to study brain-eye interactions during embryo development. researcher said that published journal would also help in retinal disorders. 

(With inputs from Cell Stem Cell journal)

(Image Credit: Cell Stem Cell journal)