Excision of the expanded GAA repeats corrects cardiomyopathy phenotypes of iPSC-derived Friedreich's ataxia cardiomyocytes

Jixue Li, Natalia Rozwadowska, Amanda Clark, Daniel Fil, Jill S. Napierala, Marek Napierala; Stem Cell Research, 2019, 101529, doi:10.1016/j.scr.2019.101529.

Our studies were conducted using cardiomyocytes differentiated from induced pluripotent stem cells derived from control individuals, FRDA patients, and isogenic cells corrected by zinc finger nucleases-mediated excision of pathogenic expanded GAA repeats. This correction of the FXN gene removed the primary trigger of the transcription defect, upregulated frataxin expression, reduced pathological lipid accumulation observed in patient cardiomyocytes, and reversed gene expression signatures of FRDA cardiomyocytes. Transcriptome analyses revealed hypertrophy-specific expression signatures unique to FRDA cardiomyocytes, and emphasized similarities between unaffected and ZFN-corrected FRDA cardiomyocytes. Thus, the iPSC-derived FRDA cardiomyocytes exhibit various molecular defects characteristic for cellular models of cardiomyopathy that can be corrected by genome editing of the expanded GAA repeats. These results underscore the utility of genome editing in generating isogenic cellular models of FRDA and the potential of this approach as a future therapy for this disease.


Excision of the expanded GAA repeats corrects cardiomyopathy phenotypes of iPSC-derived Friedreich's ataxia cardiomyocytes