Neuromuscular Organoids to Study Spinal Cord Development and Disease

Research output: Contribution to book/Conference proceedings/Anthology/ReportChapter in book/Anthology/ReportInvitedpeer-review

Contributors

Abstract

Many aspects of neurodegenerative disease pathology remain unresolved. Why do certain neuronal subpopulations acquire vulnerability to stress or mutations in ubiquitously expressed genes, while others remain resilient? Do these neurons harbor intrinsic marks that make them prone to degeneration? Do these diseases have a neurodevelopmental component? Lacking this fundamental knowledge hampers the discovery of efficacious treatments. While it is well established that human organoids enable the modeling of brain-related diseases, we still lack an organoid model that recapitulates the regionalization complexity and physiology of the spinal cord. Here, we describe an advanced experimental protocol to generate neuromuscular organoids composed of a wide rostro-caudal (RC) diversity of spinal motor neurons (spMNs) and mesodermal progenitor-derived muscle cells. This model therefore allows for the robust and reproducible study of neuromuscular unit development and disease.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationMethods Mol Biol.
Pages1–23
Publication statusPublished - 22 Nov 2024
Peer-reviewedYes

Publication series

SeriesMethods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.)
ISSN1064-3745

External IDs

ORCID /0000-0003-1065-1870/work/175220785
unpaywall 10.1007/7651_2024_574

Keywords

DFG Classification of Subject Areas according to Review Boards

Sustainable Development Goals