Use of iPSC-Derived Smooth Muscle Cells to Model Physiology and Pathology

The implementation of human-induced pluripotent stem cell models has introduced an additional tool for identifying molecular mechanisms of disease that complement animal models. Patient-derived or CRISPR/Cas9-edited induced pluripotent stem cells differentiated into smooth muscle cells (SMCs) have been leveraged to discover novel mechanisms, screen potential therapeutic strategies, and model in vivo development. The field has evolved over almost 15 years of research using human-induced pluripotent stem cell-SMCs and has made significant strides toward overcoming initial challenges such as the lineage specificity of SMC phenotypes. However, challenges both specific (eg, the lack of specific markers to thoroughly validate human-induced pluripotent stem cell-SMCs) and general (eg, a lack of transparency and consensus around methodology in the field) remain. In this review, we highlight the recent successes and remaining challenges of the human-induced pluripotent stem cell-SMC model.