Generation of Human-Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells from Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells of C9ORF72-Associated Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Patients.

Disease modeling of neuromuscular disorders, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), is hindered by limited accessibility of affected cells. This problem can be overcome by generation of human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSC), which can be then differentiated into required cells. Here, we describe the detailed protocol of hiPSC establishment from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) of two ALS patients with detected expansion of G4C2 (GGGGCC) repeats in the first intron of C9ORF72 gene, known to be linked with the most common form of familial ALS.Successful PBMC reprogramming with non-integrating Sendai vectors was confirmed by expression of pluripotency markers: OCT4, NANOG, SSEA4, and TRA-1-60 in obtained hiPSC and their ability to differentiate into cells of three germ layers.The generated ALS-patient-specific hiPSC create a possibility for deciphering molecular basis of this devastating neuromuscular disease.