Human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs), including human embryonic stem cells and human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs), provide promising sources for regenerative therapy, disease modeling, and drug screening. Relevant efforts have been invested in establishing robust induction protocols for PSC-derived dopaminergic (DA) neuron generation by mimicking brain development-related signaling pathways. However, these protocols require fully trained techniques and a long time to yield mature DA neurons. In this study, to accelerate the entire process, we generated a hiPSC line differentiating into DA neurons by the inducible force expression of two transcription factors ASCL1 and LMX1A. Using this hiPSC line, we established a rapid and simple induction protocol to generate mature DA neurons in 28 days. The induced DA neurons were characterized by gene expression and immunohistochemical analyses of fundamental DA neuronal markers. Moreover, the cell functional properties were analyzed by a multielectrode array system on day 28. This resource offers future applications for high-throughput screening, such as drug development and toxicology that require highly validated DA neurons.
Keywords: ASCL1; LMX1A; direct conversion; dopaminergic neurons; human induced pluripotent stem cells.