Cell Cluster Sorting in Automated Differentiation of Patient-specific Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells Towards Blood Cells

Zhiyao Ma; Marcelo Augusto Szymanskide Toledo; Paul Wanek; Mohamed H Elsafi Mabrouk; Francis Smet; Rock Pulak; Simon Pieske; Tobias Piotrowski; Werner Herfs; Christian Brecher; Robert H Schmitt; Wolfgang Wagner; Martin Zenke

doi:10.3389/fbioe.2022.755983

Cell Cluster Sorting in Automated Differentiation of Patient-specific Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells Towards Blood Cells

Front Bioeng Biotechnol. 2022 May 12:10:755983. doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2022.755983. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Zhiyao Ma^{1

2}, Marcelo Augusto Szymanskide Toledo^{1

2}, Paul Wanek^{1

2}, Mohamed H Elsafi Mabrouk^{1

3}, Francis Smet⁴, Rock Pulak⁵, Simon Pieske⁶, Tobias Piotrowski⁷, Werner Herfs⁶, Christian Brecher^{6

7}, Robert H Schmitt^{6

7}, Wolfgang Wagner^{1

3}, Martin Zenke^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Cell Biology, Institute for Biomedical Engineering, RWTH Aachen University Medical School, Aachen, Germany.
² Helmholtz Institute for Biomedical Engineering, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany.
³ Helmholtz Institute for Biomedical Engineering, Stem Cell Biology and Cellular Engineering, RWTH Aachen University Medical School, Aachen, Germany.
⁴ Union Biometrica, Aalst, Belgium.
⁵ Union Biometrica, Holliston, MA, United States.
⁶ Laboratory for Machine Tools and Production Engineering, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany.
⁷ Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology, Aachen, Germany.

Abstract

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) represent a particularly versatile stem cell type for a large array of applications in biology and medicine. Taking full advantage of iPS cell technology requires high throughput and automated iPS cell culture and differentiation. We present an automated platform for efficient and robust iPS cell culture and differentiation into blood cells. We implemented cell cluster sorting for analysis and sorting of iPS cell clusters in order to establish clonal iPS cell lines with high reproducibility and efficacy. Patient-specific iPS cells were induced to differentiate towards hematopoietic cells via embryoid body (EB) formation. EB size impacts on iPS cell differentiation and we applied cell cluster sorting to obtain EB of defined size for efficient blood cell differentiation. In summary, implementing cell cluster sorting into the workflow of iPS cell cloning, growth and differentiation represent a valuable add-on for standard and automated iPS cell handling.

Keywords: EB formation; cell cluster sorter; embryoid body; hematopoietic cells; iPS cells; induced pluripotent stem cells; large particle flow cytometry.