1. Academic Validation
  2. High-content phenotyping of Parkinson's disease patient stem cell-derived midbrain dopaminergic neurons using machine learning classification

High-content phenotyping of Parkinson's disease patient stem cell-derived midbrain dopaminergic neurons using machine learning classification

  • Stem Cell Reports. 2022 Oct 11;17(10):2349-2364. doi: 10.1016/j.stemcr.2022.09.001.
Aurore Vuidel 1 Loïc Cousin 1 Beatrice Weykopf 2 Simone Haupt 3 Zahra Hanifehlou 1 Nicolas Wiest-Daesslé 1 Michaela Segschneider 4 Joohyun Lee 1 Yong-Jun Kwon 1 Michael Peitz 4 Arnaud Ogier 1 Laurent Brino 1 Oliver Brüstle 2 Peter Sommer 1 Johannes H Wilbertz 5
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Ksilink, Strasbourg, France.
  • 2 Institute of Reconstructive Neurobiology, University of Bonn Medical Faculty & University Hospital Bonn, Bonn, Germany; LIFE & BRAIN GmbH, Bonn, Germany.
  • 3 LIFE & BRAIN GmbH, Bonn, Germany.
  • 4 Institute of Reconstructive Neurobiology, University of Bonn Medical Faculty & University Hospital Bonn, Bonn, Germany.
  • 5 Ksilink, Strasbourg, France. Electronic address: johannes.wilbertz@ksilink.com.
Abstract

Combining multiple Parkinson's disease (PD) relevant cellular phenotypes might increase the accuracy of midbrain dopaminergic neuron (mDAN) in vitro models. We differentiated patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) with a LRRK2 G2019S mutation, isogenic control, and genetically unrelated iPSCs into mDANs. Using automated fluorescence microscopy in 384-well-plate format, we identified elevated levels of α-synuclein (αSyn) and serine 129 phosphorylation, reduced dendritic complexity, and mitochondrial dysfunction. Next, we measured additional image-based phenotypes and used machine learning (ML) to accurately classify mDANs according to their genotype. Additionally, we show that chemical compound treatments, targeting LRRK2 kinase activity or αSyn levels, are detectable when using ML classification based on multiple image-based phenotypes. We validated our approach using a second isogenic patient-derived SNCA gene triplication mDAN model which overexpresses αSyn. This phenotyping and classification strategy improves the practical exploitability of mDANs for disease modeling and the identification of novel LRRK2-associated drug targets.

Keywords

LRRK2; Parkinson's disease; SNCA; disease modeling; iPSC; machine learning.

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