Characterization of Human Glial Progenitor Cell Age on Engraftment, and Spike-In Tumorigenicity

Leukodystrophies are a group of rare genetic diseases affecting the white matter in the central nervous system. Human glial progenitor cells (hGPCs) when differentiated from embryonic stem cells (ESCs) in culture have been shown capable of engrafting and myelinating the dysmyelinated shiverer mouse brain. To optimize the efficiency of the hGPCs ability to engraft and produce myelin, different days in vitro (DIV) were tested. Using these different DIVs, there are trends in the data that show differences in the number of the human cells differentiating as oligodendrocytes. ESCs that have not undergone a specification protocol have potential to become any cell fate and produce tumors after transplantation. When differentiating the cells into GPCs there is potential for a few undifferentiated cells to remain. Different ratios of undifferentiated cells were spiked-in with GPCs to investigate the incidence of tumorigenicity. This study is to look at the safety of the cell injections if ESCs remain.