Genetic modification of primate amniotic fluid-derived stem cells produces pancreatic progenitor cells in vitro

Insulin therapy for type 1 diabetes does not prevent serious long-term complications including vascular disease, neuropathy, retinopathy and renal failure. Stem cells, including amniotic fluid-derived stem (AFS) cells - highly expansive, multipotent and nontumorigenic cells - could serve as an appropriate stem cell source for β-cell differentiation. In the current study we tested whether nonhuman primate (nhp)AFS cells ectopically expressing key pancreatic transcription factors were capable of differentiating into a β-cell-like cell phenotype in vitro. nhpAFS cells were obtained from Cynomolgus monkey amniotic fluid by immunomagnetic selection for a CD117 (c-kit)-positive population. RT-PCR for endodermal and pancreatic lineage-specific markers was performed on AFS cells after adenovirally transduced expression of PDX1, NGN3 and MAFA. Expression of MAFA was sufficient to induce insulin mRNA expression in nhpAFS cell lines, whereas a combination of MAFA, PDX1 and NGN3 further induced insulin expression, and also induced the expression of other important endocrine cell genes such as glucagon, NEUROD1, NKX2.2, ISL1 and PCSK2. Higher induction of these and other important pancreatic genes was achieved by growing the triply infected AFS cells in media supplemented with a combination of B27, betacellulin and nicotinamide, as well as culturing the cells on extracellular matrix-coated plates. The expression of pancreatic genes such as NEUROD1, glucagon and insulin progressively decreased with the decline of adenovirally expressed PDX1, NGN3 and MAFA. Together, these experiments suggest that forced expression of pancreatic transcription factors in primate AFS cells induces them towards the pancreatic lineage.