Single-Cell RNA Sequencing of Human Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Macrophages for Quality Control of The Cell Therapy Product

• Published in: Frontiers in genetics Vol. 12; p. 658862
• Main Authors: Jo, Hye-Yeong, Seo, Hyang-Hee, Gil, Dayeon, Park, YoungChan, Han, Hyeong-Jun, Han, Hyo-Won, Thimmulappa, Rajesh K, Kim, Sang Cheol, Kim, Jung-Hyun
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland Frontiers Media S.A 31.01.2022
• Subjects: cell therapy product; Genetics; macrophage; Pluripotent stem cell; quality control; single-cell RNA sequencing; single-cell RNA sequencing; macrophage; Pluripotent stem cell; quality control; cell therapy product
• ISSN: 1664-8021; 1664-8021
• DOI: 10.3389/fgene.2021.658862

Macrophages exhibit high plasticity to achieve their roles in maintaining tissue homeostasis, innate immunity, tissue repair and regeneration. Therefore, macrophages are being evaluated for cell-based therapeutics against inflammatory disorders and cancer. To overcome the limitation related to expansion of primary macrophages and cell numbers, human pluripotent stem cell (hPSC)-derived macrophages are considered as an alternative source of primary macrophages for clinical application. However, the quality of hPSC-derived macrophages with respect to the biological homogeneity remains still unclear. We previously reported a technique to produce hPSC-derived macrophages referred to as iMACs, which is amenable for scale-up. In this study, we have evaluated the biological homogeneity of the iMACs using a transcriptome dataset of 6,230 iMACs obtained by single-cell RNA sequencing. The dataset provides a valuable genomic profile for understanding the molecular characteristics of hPSC-derived macrophage cells and provide a measurement of transcriptomic homogeneity. Our study highlights the usefulness of single cell RNA-seq data in quality control of the cell-based therapy products.