In vitro generation and electrophysiological characterization of OPCs and oligodendrocytes from human pluripotent stem cells

Abstract

The in vitro generation of defined cellular populations from induced human pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) provides the opportunity to work routinely with human material and, importantly, allows examination of material derived from patients with clinically and genetically diagnosed disorders. In this regard, the ability to derive oligodendrocytes in vitro represents an important resource to examine human oligodendrocyte-lineage cell biology in normal and disease contexts. Oligodendrocytes undergo characteristic physiological maturation during differentiation in vitro, and patch-clamp electrophysiology allows a detailed examination of maturation state and, potentially, pathologically related variations of ion channel expression and regulation. Here, we detail our methodology to generate oligodendrocyte precursor cells and oligodendrocytes and characterize them electrophysiologically.