The research, led by Professor Renzo Mancuso of the VIB-UAntwerp Center for Molecular Neurology and Professor Bart De Strooper of the VIB-KU Leuven Center for Neuroscience and the UK Dementia Research Institute, was published in the journal Developmental Cell. The team’s strategy was to coax human pluripotent stem cells, which can in principle become any cell type in the body, into mimicking a structure most people never think about after birth: the yolk sac. This temporary embryonic organ supports the developing embryo before the placenta and permanent organs are fully formed, and it is where some of the very first immune precursors in human development are generated.

Using carefully timed developmental cues, the researchers generated a population they named inducible yolk sac myeloid progenitors, abbreviated iYSMPs. Molecular profiling showed that these laboratory-grown cells closely resemble the progenitors found during early human development, effectively giving scientists a reproducible snapshot of a developmental stage that has remained hidden from direct study. The technical achievement matters because tissue-resident macrophages are not simply macrophages that happen to settle in an organ; they follow a distinct developmental trajectory that begins in embryonic tissue, and many of their defining properties depend on that early origin.

The critical question was whether these lab-made progenitors would behave like their embryonic counterparts, not merely look like them under a molecular microscope. To find out, the team transplanted the human cells into mouse models. The results were striking: the transplanted progenitors colonized several organs and adapted to their new surroundings with remarkable fidelity. In the brain, they matured into microglia and border-associated macrophages, the two specialized populations that patrol the brain’s boundaries and parenchyma. In the liver, heart, and kidney, they acquired the identities of the macrophages normally found in those tissues, activating tissue-specific gene programs that closely matched those seen in genuine human macrophages from the corresponding organs.

Single-cell analysis, a technique that reads out the gene activity of individual cells rather than averaging across a whole population, confirmed that the transplanted cells were not just surviving but genuinely taking on the molecular character of their adopted tissues. This ability to respond to local environmental cues is what distinguishes a true developmental model from a simple cell replacement experiment. It suggests that the iYSMPs retain the intrinsic potential of their embryonic ancestors, and that the organ itself provides the instructions that shape the final identity of the cell.

One of the most consequential findings of the study concerns timing. The researchers observed that cultures containing a higher proportion of iYSMPs established themselves far more effectively after transplantation than cultures enriched for more mature macrophages. In other words, the younger, more developmentally plastic the cell, the better it could seed a tissue and complete its maturation in place. This principle, that progenitor state rather than terminal differentiation is the key to successful engraftment, could reshape how scientists approach cell-based therapies for the immune system.

Professor Mancuso emphasized the significance of this developmental window. What is exciting, he noted, is that the team can now generate a human progenitor population that not only resembles the cells seen during early development but also behaves like them, providing a way to study in much greater detail how these cells develop and how local tissue environments shape their identity. That combination of molecular fidelity and functional plasticity is what has been missing from previous attempts to model human macrophage biology in the laboratory.

The therapeutic implications extend well beyond basic developmental biology. Because many neurodegenerative and chronic diseases involve dysfunction of tissue-resident macrophages, the ability to generate progenitors that can home to the right tissue and differentiate into the right macrophage type opens a conceptual path toward cell replacement strategies. Mancuso suggested that being able to generate such progenitors could provide a starting point for exploring whether damaged or dysfunctional macrophage populations might one day be replaced, a possibility that until now has been largely theoretical for cells that cannot simply be injected as mature macrophages and expected to integrate properly.

De Strooper, whose research has long focused on the mechanisms of Alzheimer’s disease, pointed to the brain as an especially promising arena for this approach. Microglia and other macrophage populations are increasingly recognized as active contributors to the disease biology of Alzheimer’s, he explained, and having a system that allows researchers to study how these cells develop, adapt, and are potentially replaced offers a new way to explore their role in disease. The same logic applies to frontotemporal dementia, another devastating neurodegenerative condition in which microglial behavior is thought to influence disease progression.

Beyond neurology, the model could inform research into liver disease, cardiac inflammation, and kidney injury, all conditions in which resident macrophages participate in both tissue repair and pathological scarring. By providing a renewable, human-derived source of embryonic-like myeloid progenitors, the iYSMP platform gives researchers a controlled system for asking how genetic risk variants, environmental toxins, or therapeutic compounds alter macrophage development and function. It also offers a way to compare macrophage biology across organs within a single experimental framework, something that has been nearly impossible with primary human tissue. While clinical applications remain distant, the study establishes a crucial proof of principle: the earliest chapters of human immune development, long locked away in embryonic tissue, can now be replayed, observed, and potentially redirected in the laboratory.

Subject of Research: Human stem-cell-derived yolk sac myeloid progenitors and the developmental origins of tissue-resident macrophages

Article Title: Human stem-cell model reveals a shared origin for tissue-resident macrophages

Article References: Human stem-cell model reveals a shared origin for tissue-resident macrophages. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: tissue-resident macrophages, microglia, yolk sac, myeloid progenitors, pluripotent stem cells, Alzheimer's disease, neurodegeneration, Developmental Cell, VIB, cell therapy, single-cell analysis, immune development

The study, published on September 17 in the journal Nature Communications, describes how the researchers guided human pluripotent stem cells, or PSCs, through a sequence of developmental steps that mirror the way salivary glands form naturally during human embryonic development. Stelios Andreadis, PhD, SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at the University at Buffalo, serves as co-principal investigator on the study alongside Olga Baker, PhD, DDS, a professor in the Department of Otolaryngology at the University of Missouri School of Medicine in Columbia. Andreadis also directs UB’s Center of Cell, Gene and Tissue Engineering and is a member of the UB Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences.

The appeal of pluripotent stem cells as a starting material lies in their remarkable accessibility and versatility. Human pluripotent stem cells can be derived from easily obtainable adult somatic cells, such as skin or blood cells, and then reprogrammed into a state in which they retain the potential to become almost any cell type in the body. That reprogramming concept earned Shinya Yamanaka of Japan and the late British biologist John Gurdon the Nobel Prize in 2012, and in the years since, researchers have used the technique to generate vascular cells, brain cells and kidney cells for study and potential therapy. Salivary gland tissue, however, had remained an elusive target, largely because of the intricate architecture and multiple specialized cell types that a working gland requires.

The Buffalo team’s approach centers on coaxing the pluripotent stem cells into becoming salivary gland epithelial progenitor cells, abbreviated SGEPs. These progenitors then organize themselves spontaneously into tiny three-dimensional structures known as organoids, miniature versions of organs that recapitulate key features of native tissue in the laboratory. Organoids have become one of the most powerful tools in modern biomedical research because they allow scientists to study organ development, disease progression and drug responses in a dish, using human-derived tissue rather than simplified cell cultures. According to Andreadis, the findings suggest that salivary gland organoids may hold promise not only for studying salivary gland development, disease progression and drug screening, but also for the development of cell therapies aimed at regenerating the glands themselves.

Generating the organoids in culture, however, is only half of the challenge. A replacement gland must survive inside a living body, integrate with surrounding tissue and mature into the full complement of functional cell types. To test whether the lab-grown structures could meet that bar, Baker’s research team in Missouri transplanted the organoids into the submandibular salivary glands of immunodeficient mice. The use of immunodeficient animals was a deliberate methodological choice: it allowed the human-derived tissue to be studied in vivo without the complication of immune rejection, giving the researchers a clear window into how the transplanted cells behave in a living glandular environment.

The results were striking. After more than 40 days inside the mice, the transplanted organoids had not merely survived; they had integrated into the existing salivary gland tissue of their hosts. Andreadis and the UB team performed the immunostaining and analyzed how well the grafts had incorporated and differentiated within the host tissue. Further analysis revealed that the organoids contained the cell types found in more mature glands, including acinar cells, which are the workhorses of saliva production; ductal cells, which form the channels that carry saliva from the gland into the mouth; and myoepithelial cells, specialized contractile cells that help squeeze saliva out of the glands and into the ductal network. The presence of all three lineages indicates that the organoids were recapitulating the essential cellular architecture of a functioning gland.

Perhaps most encouraging was the structural maturity the grafts achieved. Andreadis noted that the newly formed glands looked similar to native salivary glands and even developed lumens, the hollow interior spaces through which saliva would normally flow. Lumens are a hallmark of organized epithelial tissue and a prerequisite for any gland that hopes to secrete fluid in a directed way. Their appearance in the transplanted organoids suggests that the developmental program the researchers initiated in culture continued to unfold once the cells were placed in a living environment, driven by cues from the surrounding host tissue.

Laura Sherwood, a PhD candidate in biomedical engineering and a member of Andreadis’s research group, was first author on the paper together with Ronel Samuel, who completed his doctorate in 2024. Sherwood, who earned an award for this research at the 2025 Salivary Glands and Exocrine Biology Gordon Research Conference, summarized the significance of the transplantation experiments plainly. The experiments so far showed that the transplanted organoids have the potential to survive in vivo, she explained, and they integrated with the mouse gland and differentiated to include major salivary gland structures. That combination of survival, integration and differentiation, she noted, means the organoids could potentially become a renewable source of replacement cells for patients in the future.

Considerable work remains before such a therapy could reach the clinic, and the team is pursuing several parallel lines of refinement. One priority is to improve the differentiation process so that the cells composing the organoids become more mature and their developmental fate can be controlled with greater precision. The researchers are also working to determine the optimal stage of organoid development for transplantation and to improve the culture conditions in which the organoids grow. The ultimate functional goals are demanding: the engineered tissue must produce saliva in useful quantities, connect properly with the existing ducts that carry saliva into the mouth, and establish connections with the nerves that regulate salivary gland function. Each of these requirements represents a distinct biological hurdle, from vascularization and innervation to mechanical coupling with the recipient’s own ductal system.

Even with those challenges ahead, the implications of the work extend well beyond a single future therapy. Andreadis observed that while using these cells in humans is a long way off, the research suggests that one day scientists could repair salivary glands damaged by radiation therapy, restore saliva production in people with chronic dry mouth, study diseases of the salivary glands in the laboratory and test potential new drugs on human salivary tissue. For the patients whose quality of life is most eroded by xerostomia, particularly survivors of head and neck cancer and people living with Sjögren’s disease, the study offers something that has been missing from the field for decades: credible evidence that replacement salivary tissue can be built from a patient-accessible cell source and can take root in a living gland. Other participating researchers included graduate student Sai Harsha Bhamidipati in the UB Department of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering; Kihoon Nam, Frank Maslow and Travis Small with the University of Missouri; and Yali Zhang, Jianmin Wang and Song Liu with the Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center. The researchers reported no conflict of interest.

Subject of Research: Derivation of transplantable salivary gland organoids from human pluripotent stem cells for treating dry mouth

Article Title: UB researchers grow salivary glands from pluripotent stem cells

Article References: UB researchers grow salivary glands from pluripotent stem cells. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: pluripotent stem cells, salivary glands, organoids, xerostomia, Sjögren's disease, regenerative medicine, tissue engineering, radiation therapy, acinar cells, Nature Communications, cell therapy, University at Buffalo

The review begins with the fundamentals. Brain organoids are generated from human pluripotent stem cells, either embryonic stem cells or induced pluripotent stem cells, which aggregate into embryoid bodies and self-organize into neural tissue. In unguided protocols, these aggregates rely on intrinsic developmental cues, producing heterogeneous tissues that can contain features of several brain regions, including cortical, telencephalic, and choroid plexus-like identities. Guided protocols, by contrast, apply defined morphogens that modulate key signaling pathways such as WNT, sonic hedgehog, FGF, BMP, and retinoic acid to steer cells toward cortical, ventral forebrain, midbrain, hypothalamic, or choroid plexus-like lineages. The resulting tissues can recapitulate striking features of early cortical development, including ventricular-like lumens lined by SOX2-, PAX6-, and NESTIN-positive neural progenitors, from which differentiating neurons migrate outward toward cortical plate-like zones that echo the layered architecture of the human cortex.

Yet morphology, the authors stress, is a deceptive benchmark. The construction variables that shape an organoid’s identity include the cell source and genetic background, extracellular matrix support, embryoid body formation method, patterning strategy, culture platform, vascularization approach, and the incorporation of additional cell types such as astrocytes, microglia, or endothelial cells. Each choice ripples through regional identity, cellular composition, maturation state, and viability. Matrigel, the most widely used matrix, supports neuroepithelial expansion and three-dimensional morphogenesis, but its undefined composition and batch-to-batch variability actively undermine reproducibility. The review calls for defined hydrogels with tunable stiffness, degradability, and ligand composition as more controllable alternatives for future organoid engineering, framing this substitution as a prerequisite for translational standardization rather than a cosmetic improvement.

Culture conditions compound these challenges. Because organoids lack vasculature, oxygen and nutrients must diffuse inward from the surrounding medium, and interior cells frequently succumb to hypoxia and necrosis during long-term culture. Suspension and rotating bioreactor systems, first popularized in the landmark 2013 protocols, improve medium mixing and mass transfer, but dish-based approaches still provide limited control over aggregate size and oxygen gradients, contributing to inter-organoid variability. Microfluidic organoid-on-a-chip platforms go further, using miniaturized channels, valves, and sensors to regulate flow, compartmentalization, temperature, pH, nutrient supply, and drug exposure with unprecedented precision. Pillar and perfusion plate systems offer a parallel, higher-throughput middle ground, with evidence that continuous flow can improve oxygen supply and reduce necrotic regions compared with static culture. The review cautions, however, that every engineering benefit must be demonstrated with quantitative readouts, including organoid size distribution, hypoxia markers, viability, lineage composition, and electrophysiological maturation, rather than assumed from device sophistication.

Nowhere is the gap between engineering ambition and functional evidence more pronounced than in vascularization. The living brain is an energy-hungry organ wrapped in a dense capillary network, and avascular organoids inevitably suffer restricted proliferation, premature differentiation, impaired neurogenesis, and aberrant cortical patterning. The review details two principal strategies for closing this gap. In vitro, researchers embed endothelial cells in the matrix surrounding organoids, induce the endothelial transcription factor ETV2 to generate vascular-like networks, or fuse brain organoids with vascular spheroids, with Wnt/β-catenin pathway activation further promoting vessel formation. In vivo, transplantation into rodent brains allows host vasculature to infiltrate the graft, with vascular ingrowth detectable within 7 to 10 days and robust blood flow confirmed by two-photon microscopy. In one striking study, transplanted human brain organoids survived for up to 233 days in mice, with 85.4 percent of grafts becoming vascularized, while nonvascularized organoids failed to survive; vascularized grafts showed reduced apoptosis, larger size, and greater numbers of mature neurons.

The authors draw a sharp line, however, between vascularization and functional blood-brain barrier formation. Endothelial-like cells inside organoids may express tight-junction proteins and transporter markers such as Claudin-5, GLUT1, and P-gp, but calling this a reconstructed BBB requires permeability assays, transendothelial electrical resistance measurements, and transporter activity studies. Barrier maturation in vivo depends on orchestrated signaling, including Wnt/β-catenin for endothelial specification, PDGF-B/PDGFRβ for pericyte recruitment, and sonic hedgehog for barrier integrity, and no current organoid platform reproduces the full cellular composition, perfusion dynamics, or regional heterogeneity of the human neurovascular unit. The review’s message is that strong claims about BBB-like function demand multi-level evidence, not marker expression alone.

Functional validation receives an equally systematic treatment. Morphological quality control should track size, volume, surface regularity, neuroepithelial bud formation, ventricular zone-like structures, and necrotic or cystic regions, but these endpoints cannot establish regional identity or synaptic function. For that, the review turns to electrophysiology. Patch-clamp recording resolves single-cell excitability, revealing, for example, functionally mature neurons with voltage-dependent sodium and potassium currents in microglia-containing organoids and pacemaking dopaminergic neurons in midbrain-like models relevant to Parkinson’s disease. Multielectrode arrays provide non-invasive, longitudinal recordings of spikes, local field potentials, network bursts, and synchrony, capturing the emergence of network-level activity during long-term culture, including epileptiform-like dynamics in organoids derived from patients with neurodevelopmental disorders. Imaging adds another layer: marker panels spanning SOX2 and Ki67 for progenitors, DCX and TUJ1 for immature neurons, MAP2 and NeuN for mature neurons, and GFAP and IBA1 for astrocytes and microglia, benchmarked increasingly against single-cell transcriptomic references of the developing human brain.

The translational payoff of this framework is illustrated across a remarkable range of applications. TP53 knockdown organoids revealed disorganized neural stem cell layers and cell-cycle accumulation in G1 phase, illuminating the tumor suppressor’s role in human brain development. CDK5RAP2-mutant organoids reproduced the microcephaly phenotype with reduced volume and thinner neuroepithelium. Patient-derived midbrain organoids carrying the LRRK2 G2019S Parkinson’s mutation showed impaired dopaminergic markers, phosphorylated α-synuclein accumulation, and elevated mitophagy, with an LRRK2 kinase inhibitor rescuing the pathology. Familial Alzheimer’s organoids developed amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles, while glioblastoma-organoid co-cultures preserved invasive tumor-brain interactions for drug testing. Perhaps most provocatively, the Brainoware platform coupled cortical organoids to high-density multielectrode arrays, using organoid network dynamics as a biological reservoir for speech recognition and nonlinear equation prediction tasks, an early but tangible step toward biohybrid computing.

The review’s closing argument is that none of these advances will translate reliably without confronting variability head-on. Donor genetics, reprogramming procedures, embryoid body size, Matrigel batches, morphogen timing, and culture parameters all accumulate into substantial inter-organoid and inter-batch heterogeneity that can obscure genotype-phenotype relationships, produce screening artifacts, and distort barrier measurements. The authors call for comprehensive reporting standards covering every stage from pluripotency validation to statistical strategy, automated platforms for cell maintenance and medium exchange, AI-assisted high-content quality control, and multi-omics molecular benchmarking. Crucially, they reject the idea of a single universal organoid: developmental studies, disease models, drug screens, BBB platforms, and biohybrid interfaces each require application-specific acceptance criteria. Brain organoids, the review concludes, should be understood not as miniature brains but as engineered biological platforms, designed, validated, and interpreted with the same discipline that governs any other precision technology destined for clinical and computational frontiers.

Subject of Research: Engineering strategies, vascularization, and functional standardization of human brain organoids for biomedical applications

Article Title: Engineering brain organoids for functional validation and translational applications: Construction strategies, vascularization, and standardization

Article References: Huang, G., Lu, C., Jin, Z., Huang, Y., Du, X., Hu, X., Peng, H., Wang, S., Wen, L., Qiu, J., Wang, G., & Zhao, C. (2026). Engineering brain organoids for functional validation and translational applications: Construction strategies, vascularization, and standardization. Bioengineering & Translational Medicine, Article e70164. https://doi.org/10.1002/btm2.70164

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1002/btm2.70164

Keywords: brain organoids, pluripotent stem cells, vascularization, blood-brain barrier, electrophysiology, microfluidics, drug screening, disease modeling, standardization, reproducibility, biohybrid computing, organoid-on-a-chip

The team combined lineage tracing in mouse embryos with directed differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells to follow the developmental trajectories of neural ectoderm progenitors. Their findings reveal that two progenitor populations, which they designate anterior neural ectoderm and posterior neural ectoderm, arise side by side at the same moment in embryogenesis. The anterior neural ectoderm is committed to generating the forebrain and midbrain, while the posterior neural ectoderm is destined to produce the hindbrain. These are not cells that gradually acquire regional identity as the brain takes shape; they are lineage restricted from the outset, carrying fundamentally different developmental programs encoded in their chromatin.

Lineage tracing experiments in mice provided the crucial in vivo evidence. Using a Gbx2-CreER reporter system, the researchers labeled posterior neural ectoderm cells at embryonic day 7.0 and tracked their descendants. The labeled cells gave rise exclusively to hindbrain structures, never to forebrain or midbrain. Conversely, when individual Sox2-positive neural ectoderm progenitors were marked with fluorescent reporters at embryonic day 7.5 and followed to embryonic day 9.5, the resulting cell clusters occupied either the forebrain-midbrain domain or the hindbrain, but never spanned both. The analysis of 494 cell clusters from 16 embryos showed a clean partition, with no single progenitor contributing to both anterior and posterior brain regions.

This partitioning challenges the classical view, rooted in experiments dating back to the 1950s, that a common neural ectoderm progenitor generates the entire central nervous system and that regional identity is imposed later by external signaling gradients. The new data suggest that the forebrain, midbrain and hindbrain are already separated at the level of progenitor identity, before the neural tube has even formed. The brain, in other words, is not sculpted from a uniform clay but assembled from two pre-patterned building blocks that arrive with their fates largely predetermined.

To understand how this early commitment is molecularly encoded, the researchers turned to human pluripotent stem cells. They developed differentiation protocols that reliably generate anterior neural ectoderm-like cells and posterior neural ectoderm-like cells in vitro. When these two populations were challenged with forebrain-, midbrain- or hindbrain-inducing signals, they responded in strikingly different ways. Anterior neural ectoderm cells readily adopted forebrain and midbrain fates but resisted hindbrain conversion. Posterior neural ectoderm cells did the opposite, efficiently producing hindbrain progenitors while remaining refractory to anterior cues. This asymmetry was not a matter of subtle bias; it reflected deep lineage commitment that persisted even when cells were exposed to strongly opposing differentiation signals.

The molecular basis of this commitment was revealed through OmniATAC-sequencing, a technique that maps open, accessible regions of chromatin where regulatory elements are poised for activation. The researchers found that day-2 anterior and posterior neural ectoderm cells harbored dramatically different chromatin landscapes. Regions associated with forebrain and midbrain genes were accessible in anterior neural ectoderm but closed in posterior neural ectoderm, while hindbrain-associated regulatory elements showed the reverse pattern. These diverging chromatin states foreshadowed the eventual regional identities of the cells, indicating that lineage commitment is written into the epigenome well before morphological differences become visible.

Beyond resolving a fundamental question about brain origins, the work carries significant practical implications. The researchers demonstrated that their posterior neural ectoderm protocol could be extended to generate hindbrain rhombomere 5/6-specific motor neurons from human pluripotent stem cells, a neuronal subtype that has historically been difficult to produce in vitro. These motor neurons exhibited electrophysiological properties consistent with mature neurons, including voltage-dependent sodium and potassium currents and the ability to fire action potentials. The ability to generate specific hindbrain neuronal populations on demand opens new avenues for modeling motor neuron diseases, testing drugs and developing cell-based therapies.

The study also revealed that the dual-progenitor architecture of the brain may be far older than mammals themselves. By examining embryos from hemichordates, a group of marine invertebrates that diverged from the vertebrate lineage approximately 550 million years ago, the researchers found evidence of analogous anterior and posterior ectodermal domains. This evolutionary conservation suggests that the fundamental strategy of building a nervous system from two parallel lineages was established in the common ancestor of all deuterostomes, the superphylum that includes hemichordates, echinoderms and vertebrates. The brain, in this view, is not a vertebrate innovation but an ancient composite structure whose basic blueprint predates the emergence of backbones by hundreds of millions of years.

The implications of this work extend into multiple domains of neuroscience and regenerative medicine. If the brain is indeed a composite of two lineage-restricted progenitors, then understanding the signals that specify anterior versus posterior neural ectoderm becomes critical for generating specific brain regions in vitro. The researchers showed that modulating WNT signaling, a pathway long known to pattern the anterior-posterior axis, could direct anterior neural ectoderm cells toward more posterior fates within the forebrain-midbrain spectrum. However, once cells had committed to the anterior or posterior lineage, the barriers between them proved largely insurmountable, reinforcing the idea that these are fundamentally distinct developmental programs rather than points along a continuous gradient.

As the field grapples with the implications of this revised model, the study stands as a powerful reminder that some of the most basic assumptions in developmental biology remain open to revision. The idea that the brain arises from a single homogeneous progenitor pool has been a cornerstone of neural development textbooks for decades. The demonstration that two parallel lineages, each with its own chromatin signature and developmental potential, contribute to the mammalian brain forces a rethinking of how the central nervous system is organized at its deepest level. It also provides a new framework for understanding congenital brain malformations, which may arise not from defects in a general neural progenitor but from specific disruptions to one of these two ancient lineages.

Subject of Research: Two parallel neural ectoderm progenitors that generate the forebrain, midbrain and hindbrain during embryonic brain development

Article Title: Two parallel neural ectoderm progenitors contribute to the developing brain

Article References: Jokhai, R. T., Dundes, C. E., Ahsan, H. S., Kang, R. S., Salomon-Shulman, R. E. A., Rajan, A., Kim, Y. S., Stanton, L. J., Xu, C., Do, S., McDonald, B. D., Andrade López, J. M., Urrutia, H. A., Greenfeld, H., Wong, A., Qu, Y., Petkovic, A. S., Miao, Y., Garcia, K. C., … Loh, K. M. (2026). Two parallel neural ectoderm progenitors contribute to the developing brain. Nature Neuroscience. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-026-02433-7

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1038/s41593-026-02433-7

Keywords: neural ectoderm, brain development, lineage tracing, gastrulation, forebrain, hindbrain, chromatin, pluripotent stem cells, motor neurons, evolutionary conservation, WNT signaling, neural progenitors

The team, led by corresponding author Dinesh Upadhya of the Department of Anatomy, used human pluripotent stem cells, or PSCs, as their starting material. These cells were differentiated into neural stem cells and then into neurons, creating a controlled developmental trajectory that mirrors the earliest chapters of human brain formation. At each stage, the researchers isolated both whole-cell lipid extracts and purified mitochondrial fractions, verifying their purity with marker proteins such as ATP5A1 for mitochondria, GRP94 for the endoplasmic reticulum, and CD63 for other membranes. They then employed liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry, a sensitive lipidomics workflow, to quantify hundreds of individual lipid species across the glycerolipid and glycerophospholipid families.

The first broad observation was a gradual increase in relative lipid content as cells progressed from pluripotency toward neuronal identity, a trend seen in parallel at both the cellular and mitochondrial levels. Remarkably, the ratio of unsaturated to total lipids remained relatively stable across these transitions, suggesting that developing cells maintain a consistent degree of membrane fluidity even as they accumulate more lipid material. This constancy of unsaturation may reflect an underlying homeostatic program that protects membrane properties during the intense structural reorganization that accompanies neural differentiation.

Beneath this apparent calm, however, the cellular lipidome was anything but static. Relative levels of diacylglycerols, short-lived signaling lipids best known for activating protein kinase C pathways, rose steadily and significantly as PSCs became neural stem cells and then neurons. At the same time, relative levels of triacylglycerols, the cells’ storage fats, declined over the same trajectory. This reciprocal shift implies that developing neural cells actively break down their energy reserves and convert them into signaling-competent intermediates, possibly to fuel the demanding processes of proliferation, migration, and neurite extension that define neurodevelopment.

Among the glycerophospholipids, one change stood out with particular force: phosphatidylcholine, the most abundant phospholipid in most mammalian membranes, showed a drastic increase in relative abundance in mature neurons compared with pluripotent stem cells and neural stem cells. This enrichment likely supports the enormous expansion of membrane surface area required to build axons and dendrites, as well as the specialized electrical properties that neurons must acquire. In parallel, the ratio of phosphatidylcholine to phosphatidylethanolamine, two structural phospholipids whose balance influences membrane curvature and integrity, increased in both whole cells and mitochondria across the developmental sequence.

Yet when the researchers stepped back to compare the major lipid classes as a whole, a clear contrast emerged. The cellular lipid composition shifted significantly at every transition, while mitochondria maintained a relatively stable distribution of their principal lipids, including the glycerolipids and glycerophospholipids that form the inner and outer mitochondrial membranes. This stability makes functional sense: mitochondria depend on a tightly controlled lipid environment, particularly cardiolipin-rich inner membranes, to sustain oxidative phosphorylation, calcium handling, and the fission and fusion dynamics that developing cells rely on. Even as the cell around them reinvents itself, mitochondria appear to preserve their core lipid architecture.

Stability at the class level, however, did not mean molecular stagnation. More granular, species-level analyses of the mitochondrial lipidome revealed significant remodeling among individual lipid species, with differentially abundant molecular forms identified between PSCs, neural stem cells, and neurons through fold-change and univariate statistical comparisons. In other words, mitochondria fine-tune the precise fatty-acyl chains attached to their lipids while keeping the overall lipid class proportions constant, a strategy that could adjust membrane biophysics without disrupting core mitochondrial functions.

The study fills a genuine gap in developmental biology. Although mitochondria are known to be central players in neurodevelopment, powering the proliferation, differentiation, migration, and maturation of neural cells, the dynamics of their lipid composition during these critical windows had remained unexplored. Lipids are not passive structural fillers; they regulate membrane enzymes, transporters, signaling cascades, and the physical properties that determine whether membranes bend, fuse, or hold firm. Documenting their normal trajectory provides an essential reference point for understanding when development goes awry.

The clinical implications of this baseline dataset are considerable. Because many neurodevelopmental disorders, from autism spectrum conditions to intellectual disability syndromes, are now studied using patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells, the lipid profiles established here offer a benchmark against which disease-associated lipid perturbations can be measured. If a patient’s neural lineage shows abnormal diacylglycerol accumulation, distorted phosphatidylcholine levels, or destabilized mitochondrial lipid proportions, researchers will now have the normal developmental template to compare against, potentially revealing metabolic vulnerabilities that underlie neurological disease.

The work also raises intriguing questions for future research. What mechanisms anchor the mitochondrial lipidome in place during development, and how do mitochondria communicate their lipid needs to the endoplasmic reticulum, the major site of phospholipid synthesis? Do specific lipid species emerging during the stem-cell-to-neuron transition serve as developmental signals in their own right? As lipidomics technology becomes faster and more accessible, the mitochondrial lipid landscape of the developing human brain, long an invisible dimension of neurobiology, is finally coming into focus, one fatty acid chain at a time.

Subject of Research: Lipidomic changes in cells and mitochondria during early human neurodevelopment

Article Title: Mitochondrial lipidome exhibits relatively higher stability than cell lipidome during early neurodevelopment

Article References: Hegde, S., Chandran, D., Tripathy, D. K., Ramesh, A. I., Prabhu, K., & Upadhya, D. (2026). Mitochondrial lipidome exhibits relatively higher stability than cell lipidome during early neurodevelopment. BMC Biology. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12915-026-02726-0

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s12915-026-02726-0

Keywords: mitochondria, lipidomics, neurodevelopment, neural stem cells, pluripotent stem cells, phosphatidylcholine, diacylglycerols, triacylglycerols, neurons, BMC Biology, Mitochondrial, lipidome