CNV analysis for Generation of isogenic pluripotent stem cells differing exclusively at two early onset Parkinson point mutations

Patient-specific induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) derived from somatic cells provide a unique tool for the study of human disease in disease relevant cells, as well as a promising source for cell replacement therapies for degenerative diseases. However one of the crucial limitations before realizing the full promise of this “disease in a dish” approach has been the inability to do controlled experiments under genetically defined conditions. This is particularly relevant for disorders with long latency periods, such as Parkinson’s disease (PD), where in vitro phenotypes of patient-derived iPSCs are predicted to be subtle and susceptible to significant epistatic effects of genetic background variations. By combining zinc-finger nuclease (ZFN)-mediated genome editing and iPSC technology we provide a generally applicable solution to this key problem by generating isogenic pairs of disease and control human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) and hiPSCs lines that differ exclusively at a susceptibility variant for PD by modifying a single point mutation (A53T) in the α-synuclein gene. The robust capability to genetically correct disease causing point mutations in patient-derived hiPSCs represents not only a significant progress for basic biomedical research but also a major advancement towards hiPSC-based cell replacement therapies using autologous cells.