🇬🇧 Modelling Neuroinflammation using iPS cells

Microglia are increasingly implicated in neurodegenerative disease, for example in Alzheimer’s numerous disease-associated genes are expressed predominantly in microglia/macrophage lineages. We have previously pioneered protocols for the efficient differentiation of macrophages from human induced Pluripotent Stem Cells, and have adapted these protocols for modelling the brain-resident cousins of macrophages, microglia. iPS-cell microglia can be produced at scale, and as terminally differentiated, karyotypically normal cells with an authentic phenotype that faithfully recapitulate the genetic background of the donor, are well suited for examining the role of neurodegenerative disease-associated genes in microglia. We are using these iPS-cell models to examine the role of neurodegenerative disease-associated genes in microglia, especially in relation to inflammatory pathways, the uptake of dying neurons, and processing of the aggregation-prone protein tau.