Differentiated human stem cells resemble fetal, not adult, β cells

Human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) have the potential to generate any human cell type, and one widely recognized goal is to make pancreatic β cells. To this end, comparisons between differentiated cell types produced in vitro and their in vivo counterparts are essential to validate hPSC-derived cells. Genome-wide transcriptional analysis of sorted insulin-expressing (INS(+)) cells derived from three independent hPSC lines, human fetal pancreata, and adult human islets points to two major conclusions: (i) Different hPSC lines produce highly similar INS(+) cells and (ii) hPSC-derived INS(+) (hPSC-INS(+)) cells more closely resemble human fetal β cells than adult β cells. This study provides a direct comparison of transcriptional programs between pure hPSC-INS(+) cells and true β cells and provides a catalog of genes whose manipulation may convert hPSC-INS(+) cells into functional β cells RNA is isolated and processed using MARIS from the following samples: H1 human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) in duplicate, HUES8 hESCs in duplicate, human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) in duplicate, H1 cells differentiated to a stage in which insulin-expressing cells are present (stage 6) in duplicate, HUES8 cells differentiated to stage 6 in duplicate, hiPSCs differentiated to stage 6, insulin-expressing cells sorted from H1 cells differentiated to stage 6 in duplicate, insulin-expressing cells sorted from HUES8 cells differentiated to stage 6 in duplicate, insulin-expressing cells sorted from hiPSCs differentiated to stage 6 in duplicate, human week 16 fetal pancreata in duplicate, insulin-expressing cells sorted from human week 16 fetal pancreata in triplicate, adult human pancreatic islets in triplicate, and insulin-expressing cells sorted from adult human pancreatic islets in triplicate.