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Engineered vasculature induces functional maturation of pluripotent stem cell-derived islet organoids

Nguyen Ngoc, K. V.; Sai, S.; Jun, Y.; Bender, R. H. F.; Kravets, V.; Zhu, H.; Hatch, C. J.; Schlichting, M.; Gaetani, R.; Mallick, M.; Hachey, S. J.; Christman, K.; George, S. C.; Hughes, C. C.; Sander, M.

2022-10-30 cell biology
10.1101/2022.10.28.513298 bioRxiv
Show abstract

Blood vessels play a critical role in pancreatic islet health and function, yet current culture methods to generate islet organoids from human pluripotent stem cells (SC-islets) lack a vascular component. Here, we engineered 3D vascularized SC-islet organoids by assembling SC-islet cells, human primary endothelial cells (ECs) and fibroblasts both in a non-perfused model and a microfluidic device with perfused vessels. Vasculature improved stimulus-dependent Ca2+ influx into SC-{beta}-cells, a hallmark of {beta}-cell function that is blunted in non-vascularized SC-islets. We show that an islet-like basement membrane is formed by vasculature and contributes to the functional improvement of SC-{beta}-cells. Furthermore, cell-cell communication networks based on scRNA-seq data predicted BMP2/4-BMPR2 signaling from ECs to SC-{beta}-cells. Correspondingly, BMP4 augmented the SC-{beta}-cell Ca2+ response and insulin secretion. These vascularized SC-islet models will enable further studies of crosstalk between {beta}-cells and ECs and can serve as in vivo-mimicking platforms for disease modeling and therapeutic testing.

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