Vascular defects associated with hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia revealed in patient-derived isogenic iPSCs in 3D vessels on chip

Abstract

Hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia (HHT) is a genetic disease characterized by weak blood vessels. HHT1 is caused by mutations in the ENDOGLIN (ENG) gene. Here, we generated induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) from a patient with rare mosaic HHT1 with tissues containing both mutant (ENG^c.1678C>T) and normal cells, enabling derivation of isogenic diseased and healthy hiPSCs, respectively. We showed reduced ENG expression in HHT1 endothelial cells (HHT1-hiPSC-ECs), reflecting haploinsufficiency. HHT1^c.1678C>T-hiPSC-ECs and the healthy isogenic control behaved similarly in two-dimensional (2D) culture, forming functionally indistinguishable vascular networks. However, when grown in 3D organ-on-chip devices under microfluidic flow, lumenized vessels formed in which defective vascular organization was evident: interaction between inner ECs and surrounding pericytes was decreased, and there was evidence for vascular leakage. Organs on chip thus revealed features of HHT in hiPSC-derived blood vessels that were not evident in conventional 2D assays.

Keywords: ENG; HHT1; blood vessels; disease modeling; hereditary disorder; hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia; hiPSC-ECs; hiPSC-derived endothelial cells; microfluidics; vessels on chip.