Conversion of human urine-derived cells into neuron-like cells by small molecules
- Mol Biol Rep. 2020 Apr;47(4):2713-2722. doi: 10.1007/s11033-020-05370-1.
- 1. School of Pharmacy and Medical Sciences, University of South Australia, Adelaide, SA, 5000, Australia.
- 2. Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Drug Screening, China Pharmaceutical University, 24 Tongjiaxiang Street, Nanjing, 210009, China.
- 3. Discipline of Medicine, School of Medicine, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, 5000, Australia.
- 4. South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI), Adelaide, SA, 5000, Australia.
- 5. Neurological Disorders Research Center, Qatar Biomedical Research Institute, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Qatar Foundation, Doha, Qatar.
- 6. Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Drug Screening, China Pharmaceutical University, 24 Tongjiaxiang Street, Nanjing, 210009, China. [email protected].
- 7. School of Pharmacy and Medical Sciences, University of South Australia, Adelaide, SA, 5000, Australia. [email protected].
Neural cell transplantation is an effective way for treatment of neurological diseases. However, the absence of transplantable human neurons remains a barrier for clinical therapies. Human urine-derived cells, namely renal cells and urine stem cells, have become a good source of cells for reprogramming or trans-differentiation research. Here, we show that human urine-derived cells can be partially converted into neuron-like cells by applying a cocktail of small molecules. Gene expression analysis has shown that these induced cells expressed some neuron-specific genes, and a proportion of the cells are GABAergic neurons. Moreover, whole-cell patch clamping recording has shown that some induced cells have neuron-specific voltage gated Na+ and K+ currents but have failed to generate CA2+ currents and action potentials. Taken together, these results suggest that induced neuronal cells from human urine-derived cells may be useful for Neurological Disease modelling, drug screening and cell therapies.