The product of BMP-directed differentiation protocols for human primed pluripotent stem cells is placental trophoblast and not amnion

Abstract

The observation that trophoblast (TB) can be generated from primed pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) by exposure to bone morphogenetic protein-4 (BMP4) when FGF2 and ACTIVIN signaling is minimized has recently been challenged with the suggestion that the procedure instead produces amnion. Here, by analyzing transcriptome data from multiple sources, including bulk and single-cell data, we show that the BMP4 procedure generates bona fide TB with similarities to both placental villous TB and TB generated from TB stem cells. The analyses also suggest that the transcriptomic signatures between embryonic amnion and different forms of TB have commonalities. Our data provide justification for the continued use of TB derived from PSCs as a model for investigating placental development.

Keywords: BMP4, syncytiotrophoblast; amnion; cytotrophoblast; extravillous trophoblast; human embryonic stem cells; human primed pluripotent stem cells; placenta; scRNA-seq; snRNA-seq; trophoblast; trophoblast differentiation.