Predicting reprogramming-related gene expression from cell morphology in human induced pluripotent stem cells

Purification is essential before differentiating human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) into cells that fully express particular differentiation marker genes. High-quality iPSC clones are typically purified through gene expression profiling or visual inspection of the cell morphology; however, the relationship between the two methods remains unclear. We investigated the relationship between gene expression levels and morphology by analyzing live-cell, phase-contrast images and mRNA profiles collected during the purification process. We employed these data and an unsupervised image feature extraction method to build a model that predicts gene expression levels from morphology. As a benchmark, it was confirmed that the method can predict the gene expression levels from tissue images for cancer genes, performing as well as state-of-the-art methods. We then applied the method to iPSCs and identified two genes that are well predicted from cell morphology. Although strong batch (or possibly donor) effects resulting from the reprogramming process preclude the ability to use the same model to predict across batches, prediction within a reprogramming batch is sufficiently robust to provide a practical approach for estimating expression levels of a few genes and monitoring the purification process.