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Human pituitary development and application of iPSCs for pituitary disease

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Abstract

The pituitary plays a pivotal role in maintaining systemic homeostasis by secreting several hormones. During fetal development, the pituitary develops from the oral ectoderm in contact with the adjacent hypothalamus. This process is regulated by the fine-tuned expression of transcription and growth factors. Impairments of this process result in congenital pituitary hypoplasia leading to dysfunction of the pituitary. Although animal models such as knockout mice have helped to clarify these underlying mechanisms, the developmental processes of the human pituitary gland and the mechanisms of human pituitary disorders have not been fully understood. This is because, at least in part, of the lack of a human pituitary developmental model. Recently, methods for in vitro induction of the pituitary gland from human pluripotent stem cells were developed. These models can be utilized not only for regenerative medicine but also for human pituitary studies on developmental biology and for modeling of pituitary disorders, such as hypopituitarism and pituitary tumors. In this review, we provide an overview of recent progress in the applications of pluripotent stem cells for pituitary research and discuss further perspectives for pituitary studies.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants from the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED, The acceleration Program for Intractable Disease Research utilizing Disease-specific iPS cells: JP 18bm0804012h0002), grants in aid for Scientific Research from The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (17K19684, 16H05332, to Y.T., and 18K16232 to R.M.), grants from the Uehara Memorial Foundation and the Naito Foundation, and grants from the Centor for iPS Cell Research and Application (CiRA, The Fellowship Program of Development of Young Researchers to R.M.).

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  1. Department of Diabetes and Endocrinology, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, Kobe, Japan

    Ryusaku Matsumoto & Yutaka Takahashi

  2. Center for iPS Cell Research and Application, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

    Ryusaku Matsumoto

  3. Department of Diabetes and Endocrinology, Nara Medical University, 840 Shijo-cho, Kashihara, Nara, 634-8522, Japan

    Yutaka Takahashi

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Matsumoto, R., Takahashi, Y. Human pituitary development and application of iPSCs for pituitary disease. Cell. Mol. Life Sci. 78, 2069–2079 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00018-020-03692-8

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