2. Academic Validation
  3. Development of selective cytotoxic viral vectors for concentration of undifferentiated cells in cardiomyocytes derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells

Development of selective cytotoxic viral vectors for concentration of undifferentiated cells in cardiomyocytes derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells

  • Sci Rep. 2019 Mar 6;9(1):3630. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-36848-5.
Ken Kono 1,  Rumi Sawada 1,  Takuya Kuroda 1,  Satoshi Yasuda 1,  Satoko Matsuyama 1 2,  Akifumi Matsuyama 3,  Hiroyuki Mizuguchi 4,  Yoji Sato 5 6 7 8
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Division of Cell-Based Therapeutic Products, National Institute of Health Sciences, Kanagawa, Japan.
  • 2 Platform of Therapeutics for Rare Disease, National Institutes of Biomedical Innovation, Health and Nutrition, Hyogo, Japan.
  • 3 Department of Regenerative Medicine, School of Medicine, Fujita Health University, Aichi, Japan.
  • 4 Laboratory of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan.
  • 5 Division of Cell-Based Therapeutic Products, National Institute of Health Sciences, Kanagawa, Japan. [email protected].
  • 6 Department of Quality Assurance Science for Pharmaceuticals, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Nagoya City University, Aichi, Japan. [email protected].
  • 7 Department of Cellular and Gene Therapy Products, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan. [email protected].
  • 8 Department of Translational Pharmaceutical Sciences, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan. [email protected].
PMID: 30842516 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-36848-5
Abstract

Cell-processed therapeutic products (CTPs) derived from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) have innovative applications in regenerative medicine. However, undifferentiated hPSCs possess tumorigenic potential; thus, sensitive methods for the detection of residual undifferentiated hPSCs are essential for the clinical use of hPSC-derived CTPs. The detection limit of the methods currently available is 1/105 (0.001%, undifferentiated hPSCs/differentiated cells) or more, which could be insufficient for the detection of residual hPSCs when CTPs contain more than 1 × 105 cells. In this study, we developed a novel approach to overcome this challenge, using adenovirus and adeno-associated virus (AdV and AAV)-based selective cytotoxic vectors. We constructed AdV and AAV vectors that possess a suicide gene, iCaspase 9 (iCasp9), regulated by the CMV promoter, which is dormant in hPSCs, for the selective expression of iCasp9 in differentiated cells. As expected, AdV/CMV-iCasp9 and AAV/CMV-iCasp9 exhibited cytotoxicity in cardiomyocytes but not in human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs). The vectors also induced Apoptosis in hiPSC-derived cardiomyocytes, and the surviving cells exhibited higher levels of hPSC marker expression. These results indicate that the AdV- and AAV-based cytotoxic vectors concentrate cells expressing the undifferentiated cell markers in hiPSC-derived products and are promising biological tools for verifying the quality of CTPs.

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