Differentiation and Functional Comparison of Monocytes and Macrophages from hiPSCs with Peripheral Blood Derivatives

• Main Authors: Xu Cao, Gopala K. Yakala, Francijna E. van den Hil, Amy Cochrane, Christine L. Mummery, Valeria V. Orlova
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2019-06-01
• Series: Stem Cell Reports
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213671119301705

Summary: A renewable source of human monocytes and macrophages would be a valuable alternative to primary cells from peripheral blood (PB) in biomedical research. We developed an efficient protocol to derive monocytes and macrophages from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) and performed a functional comparison with PB-derived cells. hiPSC-derived monocytes were functional after cryopreservation and exhibited gene expression profiles comparable with PB-derived monocytes. Notably, hiPSC-derived monocytes were more activated with greater adhesion to endothelial cells under physiological flow. hiPSC-derived monocytes were successfully polarized to M1 and M2 macrophage subtypes, which showed similar pan- and subtype-specific gene and surface protein expression and cytokine secretion to PB-derived macrophages. hiPSC-derived macrophages exhibited higher endocytosis and efferocytosis and similar bacterial and tumor cell phagocytosis to PB-derived macrophages. In summary, we developed a robust protocol to generate hiPSC monocytes and macrophages from independent hiPSC lines that showed aspects of functional maturity comparable with those from PB. : In this article, Orlova and colleagues show that monocytes and macrophages differentiated from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) are functionally comparable with peripheral blood (PB)-derived cells, although some differences were identified: (1) hiPSC-derived monocytes were more activated and larger in size and (2) hiPSC-derived macrophages exhibited higher endocytosis and efferocytosis than PB-derived macrophages. Keywords: hiPSC-derived monocytes, hiPSC-derived macrophages (IPSDMs), inflammation, monocyte adhesion under flow, efferocytosis, tumor phagocytosis