Líffræðifélag Íslands - biologia.is
Líffræðiráðstefnan 2025
Erindi/veggspjald / Talk/poster V55
Höfundar / Authors: Vera Amanda Varis (1), Kimberley Jane Anderson (1), Sigurður Yngvi Kristinsson (1), Guðrún Valdimarsdóttir (1), Zarchary Hunter (2)(3), Erna Magnúsdóttir (1)
Starfsvettvangur / Affiliations: 1. UoI, School of Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, 2. Bing Center for Waldenström Macroglobulinemia, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, 3. Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Kynnir / Presenter: Vera Amanda Varis
Organoid cultures have opened new avenues for studying complex diseases. Human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC) derived bone marrow organoids (BMO) can be used to study B-cell malignancies, and their tumor microenvironment. hiPSCs are grown with selected cytokines, such as FGF2, BMP4, VEGFA on days 0-3 during mesoderm induction. On day 5, organoids are embedded in hydrogel consisting of collagen I, collagen IV and Matrigel®. Organoids are mature on day 13. Mature organoids express macrophage lineage marker CD41, hematopoietic stem cell marker CD34 and are both PDGFR and CD31 positive. After 14 days of organoid initiation, patient derived tumor cells can be seeded in the organoids. For proof of concept, we have seeded multiple myeloma patient cells in the organoids, and shown that they engraft, survive, and proliferate. This model is extremely beneficial for rare and slow growing tumors, such as Waldenström’s Macroglobulinemia (WM). WM is a non-Hodgin lymphoma, characterized by overproduction of IgM antibody. Due to tumor’s slow proliferation rate, traditional cell culture models are not the most suitable system to study WM. Therefore, BMO culture provides an avenue to expand research on the WM.