Stem Cells in press

Human iPSC-based model of COPD to investigate disease mechanisms,
predict SARS-COV-2 outcome and test preventive immunotherapy.

Dagher R, Moldobaeva A, Gubbins E, Clark S, Alfajaro MM, Wilen CB, Hawkins F, Qu X, Chiang CC, Li Y, Clarke L, Ikeda Y, Brown C, Kolbeck R, Ma Q, Rojas M, Koff JL, Ghaedi M

Chronic inflammation and dysregulated repair mechanisms after epithelial damage have been implicated in COPD. However, the lack of ex vivo-models that accurately reflect multicellular lung tissue hinders our understanding of epithelial-mesenchymal interactions in COPD. Through a combination of transcriptomic and proteomic approaches applied to a sophisticated in vitro iPSC- alveolosphere with fibroblasts model, epithelial-mesenchymal cross-talk was explored in COPD and following SARS-CoV-2 infection. These experiments profiled dynamic changes at single-cell level of the SARS-CoV-2-infected alveolar niche that unveiled the complexity of aberrant inflammatory responses, mitochondrial dysfunction, and cell death in COPD, which provides deeper insights into the accentuated tissue damage/inflammation/remodeling observed in patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection. Importantly, this 3D system allowed for the evaluation of ACE2-neutralizing antibodies and confirmed the potency of this therapy to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection in the alveolar niche. Thus, iPSC- alveolosphere cultured with fibroblasts provides a promising model to investigate disease-specific mechanisms and to develop novel therapeutics.