Salick Max R, Lubeck Eric, Riesselman Adam, Kaykas Ajamete
insitro 279 East Grand Avenue South, San Francisco CA, United States.
Semin Cell Dev Biol. 2021 Mar;111:67-73. doi: 10.1016/j.semcdb.2020.05.024. Epub 2020 Jul 9.
Until the discovery of human embryonic stem cells and human induced pluripotent stem cells, biotechnology companies were severely limited in the number of human tissues that they could model in large-scale in vitro studies. Until this point, companies have been limited to immortalized cancer lines or a small number of primary cell types that could be extracted and expanded. Nowadays, protocols continue to be developed in the stem cell field, enabling researchers to model an ever-growing library of cell types in controlled, large-scale screens. One differentiation method in particular- cerebral organoids- shows substantial potential in the field of neuroscience and developmental neurobiology. Cerebral organoid technology is still in an early phase of development, and there are several challenges that are currently being addressed by academic and industrial researchers alike. Here we briefly describe some of the early adopters of cerebral organoids, several of the challenges that they are likely facing, and various technologies that are currently being implemented to overcome them.
在人类胚胎干细胞和人类诱导多能干细胞被发现之前，生物技术公司在大规模体外研究中能够模拟的人体组织数量受到严重限制。在此之前，公司只能局限于永生化癌细胞系或少数几种可以提取和扩增的原代细胞类型。如今，干细胞领域仍在不断开发新的方案，使研究人员能够在可控的大规模筛选中模拟越来越多的细胞类型库。特别是一种分化方法——脑类器官——在神经科学和发育神经生物学领域显示出巨大潜力。脑类器官技术仍处于早期发展阶段，学术界和产业界的研究人员目前都在应对一些挑战。在此，我们简要介绍一些早期采用脑类器官的情况、他们可能面临的一些挑战，以及目前为克服这些挑战而采用的各种技术。
