ASD-specific Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells for Disease Modeling

Autism Spectrum Disorder

Specific Aims: 1. To generate induced-pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) isolated from whole blood of ASD probands and healthy controls. 2. To derive neural progenitor cells (NPCs) and neurons from iPSCs of ASD probands and healthy controls and compare differences between patients and healthy controls to investigate the cellular phenotype of ASD and uncover the pathophysiology of the disease.

Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) is a common, lifelong impairing childhood-onset neurodevelopmental disorder with clinical and genetic heterogeneity. The etiology of ASD is complicated and remains largely unknown. Evidences indicate the high heritability (54-77%) in ASD, and researchers also found copy number variations (CNVs) play an important role in the etiology of ASD. However, due to the ethical issue, researchers haven't had an appropriate platform to investigate the copy number change effect to date. In the following study, researchers are going to derive ASD-specific induced pluripotent stem cells and neurons for disease modeling. 10 ASD patients and 10 healthy controls will be included in the present study and iPSCs and neurons will be generated from their PBMCs. Electrophysiological recording and analysis of neuronal morphology will be conducted to reveal the cellular phenotype of ASD after comparing differences between patients and healthy controls. The study will provide a platform to reveal the etiology of genetic basis and molecular mechanism of ASD. The cellular phenotype of ASD will be revealed by comparing differences between patients and healthy controls. The findings from this work are expected to contribute to the basic and clinical research on ASD.

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Taiwan