1. Developmental Biology
  2. Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine

The human amniotic epithelium confers a bias to differentiate toward the neuroectoderm lineage in human embryonic stem cells

  1. Daniela Ávila-González  Is a corresponding author
  2. Wendy Portillo
  3. Carla P Barragán-Álvarez
  4. Georgina Hernandez-Montes
  5. Eliezer Flores-Garza
  6. Anayansi Molina-Hernández
  7. Nestor Emmanuel Diaz-Martinez
  8. Nestor F Diaz  Is a corresponding author
  1. Instituto Nacional de Perinatología Isidro Espinosa de los Reyes, Mexico
  2. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico
  3. Centro de Investigación y Asistencia en Tecnología y Diseño del Estado de Jalisco, Mexico
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.68035
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Cite this article
  1. Daniela Ávila-González
  2. Wendy Portillo
  3. Carla P Barragán-Álvarez
  4. Georgina Hernandez-Montes
  5. Eliezer Flores-Garza
  6. Anayansi Molina-Hernández
  7. Nestor Emmanuel Diaz-Martinez
  8. Nestor F Diaz
(2022)
The human amniotic epithelium confers a bias to differentiate toward the neuroectoderm lineage in human embryonic stem cells
eLife 11:e68035.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.68035
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Abstract

Human embryonic stem cells (hESC) derive from the epiblast and have pluripotent potential. To maintain the conventional conditions of the pluripotent potential in an undifferentiated state, inactivated mouse embryonic fibroblast (iMEF) is used as a feeder layer. However, it has been suggested that hESC under this conventional condition (hESC-iMEF) is an artifact that does not correspond to the in vitro counterpart of the human epiblast. Our previous studies demonstrated the use of an alternative feeder layer of human amniotic epithelial cells (hAEC) to derive and maintain hESC. We wondered if the hESC-hAEC culture could represent a different pluripotent stage than that of naïve or primed conventional conditions, simulating the stage in which the amniotic epithelium derives from the epiblast during peri-implantation. Like the conventional primed hESC-iMEF, hESC-hAEC has the same levels of expression as the 'pluripotency core'; and does not express markers of naïve pluripotency. However, it presents a downregulation of HOX genes and genes associated with the endoderm and mesoderm and it exhibits an increase in the expression of ectoderm lineage genes, specifically in the anterior neuroectoderm. Transcriptome analysis showed in hESC-hAEC an upregulated signature of genes coding for transcription factors involved in neural induction and forebrain development, and the ability to differentiate into a neural lineage was superior in comparison with conventional hESC-iMEF. We propose that the interaction of hESC with hAEC confers hESC a biased potential that resembles the anteriorized epiblast, which is predisposed to form the neural ectoderm.

Data availability

RNA-seq data from Amiqui-1 are available at the ArrayExpress database (https://www.ebi.ac.uk/arrayexpress/experiments/E-MTAB-10347/) under accession number E-MTAB-10347. Source code for the following analyses is available as indicated: BioJupies, https://github.com/MaayanLab/biojupies.

The following data sets were generated
The following previously published data sets were used

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Daniela Ávila-González

    Fisiología y Desarrollo Celular, Instituto Nacional de Perinatología Isidro Espinosa de los Reyes, Mexico City, Mexico
    For correspondence
    siriusyami@gmail.com
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  2. Wendy Portillo

    Behavioral and Cognitive Neurobiology, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Querétaro, Mexico
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  3. Carla P Barragán-Álvarez

    Centro de Investigación y Asistencia en Tecnología y Diseño del Estado de Jalisco, Guadalajara, Mexico
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  4. Georgina Hernandez-Montes

    Red Apoyo a la Investigacion UNAM, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City, Mexico
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  5. Eliezer Flores-Garza

    Departamento de Biología Molecular y Biotecnología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City, Mexico
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  6. Anayansi Molina-Hernández

    Fisiología y Desarrollo Celular, Instituto Nacional de Perinatología Isidro Espinosa de los Reyes, Mexico City, Mexico
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  7. Nestor Emmanuel Diaz-Martinez

    Centro de Investigación y Asistencia en Tecnología y Diseño del Estado de Jalisco, Guadalajara, Mexico
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  8. Nestor F Diaz

    Fisiología y Desarrollo Celular, Instituto Nacional de Perinatología Isidro Espinosa de los Reyes, Mexico City, Mexico
    For correspondence
    nfdiaz00@yahoo.com.mx
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-2436-9374

Funding

Instituto Nacional de Perinatología (21041 and 21081)

  • Nestor F Diaz

Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (130627,252756 and A1-S-8450)

  • Nestor F Diaz

Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (300638,271307)

  • Nestor Emmanuel Diaz-Martinez

FONDECIJAL (8084-2019)

  • Nestor Emmanuel Diaz-Martinez

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Reviewing Editor

  1. Joshua M Brickman, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Version history

  1. Received: March 2, 2021
  2. Accepted: July 8, 2022
  3. Accepted Manuscript published: July 11, 2022 (version 1)
  4. Version of Record published: July 25, 2022 (version 2)

Copyright

© 2022, Ávila-González et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

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  1. Daniela Ávila-González
  2. Wendy Portillo
  3. Carla P Barragán-Álvarez
  4. Georgina Hernandez-Montes
  5. Eliezer Flores-Garza
  6. Anayansi Molina-Hernández
  7. Nestor Emmanuel Diaz-Martinez
  8. Nestor F Diaz
(2022)
The human amniotic epithelium confers a bias to differentiate toward the neuroectoderm lineage in human embryonic stem cells
eLife 11:e68035.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.68035

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