Neuronal lineage tracing from progenitors in human cortical organoids reveals mechanisms of neuronal production, diversity, and disease

The contribution of progenitor subtypes to generate the billions of neurons produced during human cortical neurogenesis is not well understood. We developed the Cortical ORganoid Lineage Tracing (COR-LT) system for human cortical organoids. Differential fluorescent reporter activation in distinct progenitor cells leads to permanent reporter expression, enabling the progenitor cell lineage of neurons to be determined. Surprisingly, nearly all excitatory neurons produced in cortical organoids were generated indirectly from intermediate progenitor cells, while astrocytes and inhibitory neurons were produced both directly and indirectly. Additionally, neurons of different progenitor lineages were transcriptionally distinct. Isogenic lines made from an autistic individual with and without a likely pathogenic variant in the CTNNB1 gene demonstrated that the variant substantially altered the proportion of neurons derived from specific progenitor cell lineages, as well as the lineage-specific transcriptional profiles of these neurons, suggesting a pathogenic mechanism for this mutation. These results suggest individual progenitor subtypes play unique roles in generating the diverse neurons of the human cerebral cortex.