An Improved qPCR-Based ScoreCard Assay

Assess the differentiation potential of human pluripotent stem cells

Alexander M. Tsankov; Broad Institute, Harvard University

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Human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) hold great promise for tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, and disease modeling [1]. The number of hPSC lines has dramatically increased in the past decade, which has created a need for hPSC quality standards that can ensure comparable results across laboratories [2]. We recently introduced a qPCR-based ScoreCard assay that uses gene expression signatures to quantify the differentiation potential of hPSC lines [3]. The improved ScoreCard method enables a rapid, more reproducible assessment of functional pluripotency than the teratoma assay and allows for a wider range of applications than previous genomic approaches, including screening of small molecules, quantifying perturbations of lineage regulators, and assessing different culture conditions.

Comparison of ScoreCard and teratoma assays

Formation of teratomas in mice is the most frequently used assay for quantifying the differentiation potential of hPSCs. However, teratoma generation is a very costly, time-consuming, and variable assay [2,4] and is not an efficient way to assess the quality of thousands of new cell lines (Figure 1A). To circumvent these issues, genomic approaches that instead use gene expression signatures to quantify pluripotency have emerged. PluriTest uses microarray measurements to assess with great accuracy the molecular signatures of pluripotency of a new cell line against a large database of hPSC lines [5]. Also, the original ScoreCard assay utilized the NanoString™ nCounter™ gene expression technology to evaluate both molecular and functional pluripotency [6], defined as differentiation into the three germ layers.

We have developed a qPCR-based ScoreCard assay (available commercially as the Applied Biosystems™ TaqMan® hPSC Scorecard™ Panel), which presents several advantages over previous approaches [3]. The assay is highly accessible to all labs with qPCR machines and more cost-effective than the previous ScoreCard assay. The gene panel leverages recent data on genome-wide expression of early germ layer differentiation [7] to improve the uniqueness of marker genes. We also improved the statistical analysis using the weighted Z-method, which combines information across multiple genes in a weighted, assay-dependent manner while also taking into account dependencies between genes [8]. The weighted Z-method thus enables a wider array of applications than the previous ScoreCard assay and provides a statistical measure of functional pluripotency.

We compared the predictive power of cell line differentiation potential as quantified by the teratoma assay and by the qPCR-based ScoreCard assay following embryoid body (EB) differentiation. We calculated the variance in assay scores between different cell lines and within replicates from the same cell lines. The between-group and within-group variances for the teratoma-predicted differentiation potential were very similar when quantified by an independent pathologist and when using gene expression signatures of our panel (Figure 1B, left). In contrast, we found that the EB differentiation potential scores had a significantly lower within-replicate variance than between–cell line variance (P < 0.0005, F-tests), even after culturing the replicates for more than 10 passages (Figure 1B, right). These results show that EB differentiation potential as quantified by the qPCR-based ScoreCard assay is a more quantitative and reproducible measure of a cell line’s germ layer propensity than the teratoma assay.

New applications of the qPCR-based ScoreCard assay

The ScoreCard differentiation potential of cells lines based on the weighted Z-method correlates highly (R ≥ 0.83, P < 10^–3, Pearson correlation) with established measures of directed differentiation efficiency (Figure 2A). This high proportionality between the ScoreCard assay’s measure of differentiation potential and germ layer efficiency enables several new applications of the qPCR-based ScoreCard assay, including assessing the effects of culture conditions, small molecules, and knockdown of key transcriptional regulators.

Using the qPCR-based ScoreCard assay, we observed a substantial difference in the gene expression signatures of 11 hPSC lines grown both on mouse embryonic fibroblast (MEF) feeder cells and in feeder-free culture conditions. Figure 2B shows that pluripotency markers were more highly expressed in hPSC lines grown in feeder-free conditions (P = 7 × 10^–4, weighted Z-method), while markers of the three germ layers were more highly expressed in cell lines grown on feeders. This result suggests that a feeder culture introduces higher background differentiation, possibly due to differences in signaling [9]. We further observed that cell lines adapted on feeder-free culture for several passages had an even greater reduction of endoderm marker expression (Figure 2C).

The ScoreCard assay also allowed us to quantify the effect of different small molecules on endoderm differentiation. We found that replacing recombinant protein WNT3A with the less costly LiCl molecule did not affect the differentiation potential of cell line HUES64 (Figure 2D). However, compound IDE1 decreased LEFTY1 expression and endoderm differentiation potential [10].

In addition, we used the ScoreCard assay to quantify the effect of knocking down key lineage regulators. We knocked down transcription factor OTX2 in undifferentiated hPSCs using three distinct short hairpin RNAs (shRNAs) and observed lower overall activation of ectoderm marker genes following directed differentiation towards ectoderm (Figure 2E), supporting the hypothesis that OTX2 plays a key role in establishing early ectoderm cell fate [11,12]. We also observed a higher overall expression of mesoderm markers in the OTX2 knockdown ectoderm cells (Figure 2E, bottom), suggesting that OTX2 may act as a repressor of key mesoderm genes.

Future directions

We recently developed a qPCR-based ScoreCard assay [3] with an improved gene expression panel, statistical analysis, and utility for a wider range of applications (latest information on the TaqMan hPSC Scorecard Assay is available at thermofisher.com/scorecardbp74). The qPCR-based ScoreCard assay allows for more quantitative and reproducible assessment of differentiation potential than the teratoma assay and is highly accessible, 5 to 10 times faster, and more cost-effective (Figure 1A). An area of focus for future development is incorporation of the improved algorithm described in [3] into the analysis module of the TaqMan hPSC ScoreCard Assay so that it is available online for all users. Also, single-cell transcriptomics could further improve the gene selection process and the reduction of gene expression markers needed to maintain statistical power while further reducing the assay cost.

Acknowledgments: This article was contributed by Alexander M. Tsankov, who is a member of the Meissner laboratory at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, and the Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University. Please address correspondence to: atsankov@broadinstitute.org.

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