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Transcriptional Variabilities in Human hiPSC-derived Cardiomyocytes: All Genes Are Not Equal and Their Robustness May Foretell Donor's Disease Susceptibility

Gu, C. C.; Matter, A.; Turner, A.; Aggarwal, P.; Yang, W.; Sun, X.; Hunt, S. C.; Lewis, C. E.; Arnett, D. K.; Anson, B.; Kattman, S.; Broeckel, U.

2024-04-21 genetics
10.1101/2024.04.18.584138 bioRxiv
Show abstract

Human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) are frequently used to study disease-associated variations. We characterized transcriptional variability from a hiPSC-derived cardiomyocyte (hiPSC-CM) study of left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) using donor samples from the HyperGEN study. Multiple hiPSC-CM differentiations over reprogramming events (iPSC generation) across 7 donors were used to assess variabilities from reprogramming, differentiation, and donor LVH status. Variability arising from pathological alterations was assessed using a cardiac stimulant applied to the hiPSC-CMs to trigger hypertrophic responses. We found that for most genes (73.3%[~]85.5%), technical variability was smaller than biological variability. Further, we identified and characterized lists of "noise" genes showing greater technical variability and "signal" genes showing greater biological variability. Together, they support a "genetic robustness" hypothesis of disease-modeling whereby cellular response to relevant stimuli in hiPSC-derived somatic cells from diseased donors tends to show more transcriptional variability. Our findings suggest that hiPSC-CMs can provide a valid model for cardiac hypertrophy and distinguish between technical and disease-relevant transcriptional changes.

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