Amnion-on-a-chip: modeling human amniotic development in mid-gestation from pluripotent stem cells

Area of Science:

• Developmental Biology
• Bioengineering
• Stem Cell Biology

Background:

• The amnion is crucial for fetal protection, but its development is poorly understood due to a lack of suitable human models.
• Studying amniotic development is vital for understanding normal and abnormal pregnancies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To create a novel human amnion model using human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) integrated into an "amnion-on-a-chip" device.
• To mimic early human amniotic development and provide a platform for studying pregnancy biology.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a bioengineering approach combined with developmental biology principles.
• Cultured hPSCs in a perfusable 3D microchip to promote self-organization into amnion-like cavities.
• Analyzed the self-organized cavities using morphological, marker expression, and transcriptome analyses (RNA-seq).

Main Results:

• hPSCs self-organized into amnion epithelial cavities resembling mid-gestation human amniotic development.
• The generated cavities displayed key amnion tissue features, confirmed by morphology, marker expression, and RNA-seq.
• High expression of amnion-specific genes and the mid-gestation marker KRT24 (at mRNA and protein levels) verified tissue maturation.

Conclusions:

• The "amnion-on-a-chip" model successfully replicates human amniotic development from hPSCs.
• This model offers a powerful new tool for investigating essential biological events in human amnions.
• It holds potential for studying both normal and diseased states of pregnancy.