Comparison of Developmental Dynamics in Human Fetal Retina and Human Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Retinal Tissue

Progressive vision loss, caused by retinal degenerative (RD) diseases such as age-related macular degeneration, retinitis pigmentosa, and Leber congenital amaurosis, severely impacts quality of life and affects millions of people. Finding efficient treatment for blinding diseases is among the greatest unmet clinical needs. The evagination of optic vesicles from developing pluripotent stem cell-derived neuroepithelium and self-organization, lamination, and differentiation of retinal tissue in a dish generated considerable optimism for developing innovative approaches for treating RD diseases, which previously were not feasible. Retinal organoids may be a limitless source of multipotential retinal progenitors, photoreceptors (PRs), and the whole retinal tissue, which are productive approaches for developing RD disease therapies. In this study we compared the distribution and expression level of molecular markers (genetic and epigenetic) in human fetal retina (age 8-16 weeks) and human embryonic stem cell (hESC)-derived retinal tissue (organoids) by immunohistochemistry, RNA-seq, flow cytometry, and mass-spectrometry (to measure methylated and hydroxymethylated cytosine level), with a focus on PRs to evaluate the clinical application of hESC-retinal tissue for vision restoration. Our results revealed high correlation in gene expression profiles and histological profiles between human fetal retina (age 8-13 weeks) and hESC-derived retinal tissue (10-12 weeks). The transcriptome signature of hESC-derived retinal tissue from retinal organoids maintained for 24 weeks in culture resembled the transcriptome of human fetal retina of more advanced developmental stages. The histological profiles of 24 week-old hESC-derived retinal tissue displayed mature PR immunophenotypes and presence of developing inner and outer segments. Collectively, our work highlights the similarity of hESC-derived retinal tissue at early stages of development (10 weeks), and human fetal retina (age 8-13 weeks) and it supports the development of regenerative medicine therapies aimed at using tissue from hESC-derived retinal organoids (hESC-retinal implants) for mitigating vision loss.