hPSC-derived Midbrain Dopaminergic Neurons Generated in a Scalable 3-D Biomaterial

Human pluripotent stem cell (hPSC)–derived midbrain dopaminergic (mDA) neurons may facilitate the development of therapies for Parkinson's disease via disease modeling, drug screening, and cell replacement therapy. However, large numbers of cells are typically needed for these applications, and 2-D culture–based approaches typically used for mDA differentiation are difficult to scale up and require a long time for mDA maturation. Here we present a protocol to rapidly generate functional mDA neurons in a fully defined, scalable, thermoresponsive 3-D biomaterial. Resource-efficient and accelerated differentiation of large numbers of mDA neurons may thus facilitate studying and treating PD. © 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.