Baldassari, S;
Musante, I;
Iacomino, M;
Zara, F;
Salpietro, V;
Scudieri, P;
(2020)
Brain Organoids as Model Systems for Genetic Neurodevelopmental Disorders.
Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology
, 8
, Article 590119. 10.3389/fcell.2020.590119.
Preview |
Text
fcell-08-590119.pdf - Published Version Download (1MB) | Preview |
Abstract
Neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) are a group of disorders in which the development of the central nervous system (CNS) is disturbed, resulting in different neurological and neuropsychiatric features, such as impaired motor function, learning, language or non-verbal communication. Frequent comorbidities include epilepsy and movement disorders. Advances in DNA sequencing technologies revealed identifiable genetic causes in an increasingly large proportion of NDDs, highlighting the need of experimental approaches to investigate the defective genes and the molecular pathways implicated in abnormal brain development. However, targeted approaches to investigate specific molecular defects and their implications in human brain dysfunction are prevented by limited access to patient-derived brain tissues. In this context, advances of both stem cell technologies and genome editing strategies during the last decade led to the generation of three-dimensional (3D) in vitro-models of cerebral organoids, holding the potential to recapitulate precise stages of human brain development with the aim of personalized diagnostic and therapeutic approaches. Recent progresses allowed to generate 3D-structures of both neuronal and non-neuronal cell types and develop either whole-brain or region-specific cerebral organoids in order to investigate in vitro key brain developmental processes, such as neuronal cell morphogenesis, migration and connectivity. In this review, we summarized emerging methodological approaches in the field of brain organoid technologies and their application to dissect disease mechanisms underlying an array of pediatric brain developmental disorders, with a particular focus on autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) and epileptic encephalopathies.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Brain Organoids as Model Systems for Genetic Neurodevelopmental Disorders |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.3389/fcell.2020.590119 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fcell.2020.590119 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2020 Baldassari, Musante, Iacomino, Zara, Salpietro and Scudieri. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10124245 |
Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
