In vitro study demonstrates higher mitochondrial lipid stability during neurogenesis from stem cells, highlighting a baseline for evaluating neurodevelopmental disorders.
Key Points
To characterize and compare the dynamic lipidomic remodeling of whole cells and mitochondria across human neurodevelopmental stages.
Differentiated human pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) into neural stem cells (NSCs) and mature neurons.
Performed comparative lipidomic profiling to track changes in relative lipid content, unsaturation levels, and major lipid classes across both whole cells and isolated mitochondria.
Relative lipid content and the phosphatidylcholine-to-phosphatidylethanolamine (PC/PE) ratio gradually increased during progression from PSCs to NSCs and neurons in both whole cells and mitochondria.
Cellular diacylglycerol levels steadily increased while triacylglycerols decreased during neural differentiation, a shift not observed in mitochondria.
Mitochondria maintained a stable distribution of major lipid classes such as glycerolipids and glycerophospholipids, though differential lipid analyses revealed significant remodeling at the species level.