Craniofacial cartilage organoids from human neural crest stem cells

We hypothesize that knowledge of cell signaling pathways that drive human neural crest differentiation into craniofacial chondrocytes may be obtained using human stem cells that self-organize into organoids. We developed a differentiation protocol that generated self-organizing craniofacial cartilage organoids from human embryonic stem cell-derived neural crest stem cells. Histological staining of cartilage organoids revealed tissue architecture and staining typical of elastic cartilage. Protein and post-translational modification (PTM) mass spectrometry and snRNA-seq data showed that chondrocyte organoids expressed robust levels of cartilage extracellular matrix (ECM) components: many collagens, aggrecan, perlecan, proteoglycans, and elastic fibers.