KeyGenes can predict future identity of human fetal stem cells

A snapshot of gene activity is now all that's necessary to determine what organ or tissue type that a cluster of fetal stem cells will ultimately become.

An algorithm developed by a team of Dutch scientists makes it possible to match what's happening inside of an immature stem cell to known human fetal cell gene expression, thus identifying what the stem cell has the potential to be. The platform, dubbed KeyGenes and presented May 28 in Stem Cell Reports, could also prove useful for testing the quality of stem cell transplants made up of undifferentiated cells.

"One of the hardest things in stem cell biology is to determine what you have turned the cells into using a particular method of differentiation," says study senior author Susana Chuva de Sousa Lopes of the Leiden University Medical Center in The Netherlands. "We think that KeyGenes can help us develop differentiation protocols that lead to cells forming that resemble their in vivo counterparts much more closely."

CellNet, a comparable platform for mapping stem cell fate, was published by Boston researchers last summer. The difference is CellNet helps conclude the quality of procedures used to differentiate human adult tissue by comparing the tissue to microarray data (tests that see which genes are turned on or off). KeyGenes is based primarily on gene expression and integrates data from both human fetal and adult tissue to determine "identity scores" for differentiated cells.

"By collecting extensive data on gene expression during human fetal development (at different stages but also multiple organs), KeyGenes allows human stem cell derivatives to be identified and given a correct 'age' equivalent," says Leiden University co-author Christine Mummery.