Conversion of human urine-derived cells into neuron-like cells by small molecules

Neural cell transplantation is an effective way for treatment of neurological diseases. However, the absence of transplantable human neurons remains a barrier for clinical therapies. Human urine-derived cells, namely renal cells and urine stem cells, have become a good source of cells for reprogramming or trans-differentiation research. Here, we show that human urine-derived cells can be partially converted into neuron-like cells by applying a cocktail of small molecules. Gene expression analysis has shown that these induced cells expressed some neuron-specific genes, and a proportion of the cells are GABAergic neurons. Moreover, whole-cell patch clamping recording has shown that some induced cells have neuron-specific voltage gated Na⁺ and K⁺ currents but have failed to generate Ca²⁺ currents and action potentials. Taken together, these results suggest that induced neuronal cells from human urine-derived cells may be useful for neurological disease modelling, drug screening and cell therapies.