Publications by authors named "Niall J Treacy"
Article Synopsis
- Recent advances in converting somatic cells into induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPSCs) have led to the development of kidney organoids for studying kidney development and disease.
- Significant progress has been made by applying renal developmental signaling pathways and using hydrogel scaffolds like self-assembling peptide hydrogels (SAPHs) and gelatin methacryloyl (GelMA) for growing these organoids.
- This work outlines methods to generate human iPSC-derived kidney organoids, their maturation in hydrogels, and protocols for characterizing these organoids through immunofluorescence imaging.
TGFβ1 plays a regulatory role in the determination of renal cell fate and the progression of renal fibrosis. Here we show an association between SMAD3 and the histone methyltransferase, EZH2, during cell differentiation; ChIP-seq revealed that SMAD3 and EZH2 co-occupy the genome in iPSCs and in iPSC-derived nephron progenitors. Through integration of single cell gene expression and epigenome profiling, we identified de novo ACTA2/POSTN myofibroblasts in kidney organoids treated with TGFβ1, characterised by increased SMAD3-dependent cis chromatin accessibility and gene expression associated with fibroblast activation.
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- Human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC)-derived kidney organoids show promise for disease modeling and personalized medicine, but improvements in their formation methods are needed.* -
- Researchers matured these organoids in synthetic self-assembling peptide hydrogels (SAPHs) with varying stiffness, achieving structures similar to those grown in traditional animal-derived matrices like Matrigel.* -
- Analysis revealed that organoids developed in higher stiffness SAPHs had more mature podocyte gene expressions and fewer off-target cell types, highlighting the benefits of using synthetic hydrogels for kidney organoid maturation.*