Modeling Down Syndrome with Patient iPSCs Reveals Cellular and Migration Deficits of GABAergic Neurons

Summary: The brain of Down syndrome (DS) patients exhibits fewer interneurons in the cerebral cortex, but its underlying mechanism remains unknown. By morphometric analysis of cortical interneurons generated from DS and euploid induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), we found that DS GABA neurons are smaller and with fewer neuronal processes. The proportion of calretinin over calbindin GABA neurons is reduced, and the neuronal migration capacity is decreased. Such phenotypes were replicated following transplantation of the DS GABAergic progenitors into the mouse medial septum. Gene expression profiling revealed altered cell migratory pathways, and correction of the PAK1 pathway mitigated the cell migration deficit in vitro. These results suggest that impaired migration of DS GABAergic neurons may contribute to the reduced number of interneurons in the cerebral cortex and hippocampus in DS patients. : In this article, Liu and colleagues show that Down syndrome iPSC-derived GABAergic interneurons exhibit less complexity in morphology and impaired migration both in vitro and in vivo. Keywords: iPSC disease modeling, Down syndrome, differentiation, GABAergic neurons, migratio