Vascularization of human brain organoids

AbstractHuman brain organoids are three ‐dimensional tissues that are generatedin vitro from pluripotent stem cells and recapitulate the early development of the human brain. Brain organoids consist mainly of neural lineage cells, such as neural stem/precursor cells, neurons, astrocytes and oligodendrocytes. However, all human brain organoids lack vasculature, which plays indispensable roles not only in brain homeostasis but also in brain development. In addition to the delivery of oxygen and nutrition, accumulating evidence suggests that the vascular system of the brain regulates neural differentiation, migration and circuit formation during development. Therefore, vascularization of human brain organoids is of great importance. Current trials to vascularize various organoids include the adjustment of cultivation protocols, the introduction of microfluidic devices, and the transplantation of organoids into immunodeficient mice. In this review, we summarize the efforts to accomplish vascularization and perfusion of brain organoids, and we discuss these attempts from a forward ‐looking perspective.© AlphaMed Press 2021Significance StatementResearch with human brain organoids is rapidly expanding in the fields of human brain development and disease modeling. The vascularization of brain organoids is expected to help expand the use of brain organoids to fields in which they have not yet been applied, for example, the investigation of neurovascular interactions on a human pl...
Source: Stem Cells - Category: Stem Cells Authors: Tags: Stem Cell Technology: Epigenetics, Genomics, Proteomics and Metabonomics Source Type: research