Generation of Donor-Specific iPSC for Modelling Lysosomal Storage Disorders

iPSC technology has enabled the generation of human cell-based models of lysosomal storage disorders and has provided disease-relevant systems to undertake drug discovery or pre-clinical testing of gene- or cell-based therapies. Here, we provide a protocol to generate iPSCs derived from people with lysosomal storage disorders and illustrate expected results using a CLN2 disease donor-specific skin fibroblast culture. Protocol steps include lipofection of episomal plasmids, picking of putative iPSC colonies following live cell TRA-1-60 immunofluorescence, and quality control steps such as immunofluorescence for expression of undifferentiated cell markers, germ layer differentiation, and confirmation of pathological variant genotype. The iPSC generated by this protocol can be differentiated to several cell lineages and can be used with CRISPR/Cas technology to generate isogenic disease models.