Generation of human androgenetic induced pluripotent stem cells

In humans, parthenogenesis and androgenesis occur naturally in mature cystic ovarian teratomas and androgenetic complete hydatidiform moles (CHM), respectively. Our previous study has reported human parthenogenetic induced pluripotent stem cells from ovarian teratoma–derived fibroblasts and screening of imprinted genes using genome-wide DNA methylation analysis. However, due to the lack of the counterparts of uniparental cells, identification of new imprinted differentially methylated regions has been limited. CHM are inherited from only the paternal genome. In this study, we generated human androgenetic induced pluripotent stem cells (AgHiPSCs) from primary androgenetic fibroblasts derived from CHM. To investigate the pluripotency state of AgHiPSCs, we analyzed their cellular and molecular characteristics. We tested the DNA methylation status of imprinted genes using bisulfite sequencing and demonstrated the androgenetic identity of AgHiPSCs. AgHiPSCs might be an attractive alternative source of human androgenetic embryonic stem cells. Furthermore, AgHiPSCs can be used in regenerative medicine, for analysis of genomic imprinting, to study imprinting-related development, and for disease modeling in humans.

the maternal genome. They may arise from the fertilization of oocytes without nucleus by a single sperm or two sperms 14 . About 90% of CHM have the 46, XX karyotype, whereas ~10% have the 46, XY karyotype 12,15 . PHM have a triploid genome (69, XXY; 69, XXX; or 69, XXY) and result from fertilization of an egg by two sperms 12 .
Human induced pluripotent stem cells (HiPSCs) have been derived from various fibroblasts 11,[16][17][18][19][20] . Previously, we generated human parthenogenetic induced pluripotent stem cells (PgHiPSCs) from mature cystic ovarian teratoma-derived human parthenogenetic fibroblasts (PgFibs) for screening of imprinted genes 21 . However, due to the lack of the counterparts of uniparental cell lines, comprehensive study of genomic imprinting has been limited. In this study, we report for the first time generation of human androgenetic induced pluripotent stem cells (AgHiPSCs) from CHM-derived fibroblasts. AgHiPSCs can be used for comprehensive methylation analysis along with PgHiPSCs, as well as in regenerative medicine, research on imprinting-related development and disease modeling.

Results
Derivation of human androgenetic fibroblasts. The CHM types have been classically described as "bunch of grapes", "snowstorm", or "granular" [22][23][24] . We isolated fibroblasts from a CHM resembling a bunch of grapes (Supplementary Data Fig. S1a) using collagenase/hyaluronidase to dissociate the tissue into single cells, as described for mouse and human mammary gland tissues 25,26 . The androgenetic fibroblasts (AgFibs) exhibited morphology typical for human fibroblasts (Supplementary Data Fig. S1b).
To confirm the androgenetic imprinting status of AgFibs, we examined the methylation status in the differentially methylated regions (DMRs) of the maternally imprinted gene, MEST. We previously used bisulfite sequencing of the DMRs of MEST to identify the imprinting status of PgFibs and PgHiPSCs 21 . As shown in Supplementary Data Fig. S1c, MEST was hypermethylated in PgFibs, which were used as a control, but not in AgFibs. As expected, biparental fibroblasts showed somatic imprinting patterns in MEST (Supplementary Data Fig. S1c). These results confirm the androgenetic identity of AgFibs.

Generation and characterization of human androgenetic induced pluripotent stem cells.
To generate an AgHiPSC line, AgFibs were infected with lentiviruses expressing reprogramming factors OCT4 (also known as POU5F1), SOX2, KLF4, and cMYC 17 . AgHiPSCs showed typical ESC-like morphology and stained positive for alkaline phosphatase (Fig. 1a). We confirmed the expression of the pluripotency-specific markers OCT4, SOX2, NANOG, SSEA4, TRA-1-60, and TRA-1-81 in AgHiPSCs by immunocytochemical analysis (Fig. 1b). AgFibs and human ESCs (H9) were used as negative and positive controls, respectively (Supplementary Data Fig. S2). The expression levels of OCT4, SOX2, and NANOG in AgHiPSCs were similar to those in H9 as revealed by quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) and RT-PCR analysis ( Fig. 1c and Supplementary Data Fig. S3). Bisulfite sequencing analysis showed that OCT4 was hypomethylated in AgHiPSCs and H9 cells, but was hypermethylated in AgFibs (Fig. 1d). We performed RNA-sequencing analysis to compare global gene expression. H9 cells were used as control. To investigate the dependence between two sets of data, we calculated using Pearson correlation. We found positive Pearson correlation coefficients values between samples. The correlation analysis between these samples is represented in Fig. 2a. Hierarchical clustering showed that the global gene expression profile of AgHiPSCs was similar to that of H9 cells (Fig. 2b). As expected, scatter plots showed high correlation between AgHiPSCs and H9 cells but no correlation between AgHiPSCs and AgFibs (Fig. 2c). The expression of pluripotency-specific genes and fibroblast-specific genes is shown as a heat map in AgHiPSCs could be differentiated into three germ layers in vitro through embryoid body (EB) formation and in vivo through teratoma formation. We confirmed the expression of layer-specific gene markers in the endoderm (AFP, GATA4, and SOX17), mesoderm (MSX and BRACHYURY), and ectoderm (PAX6) of differentiated EBs by using RT-PCR analysis (Supplementary Data Fig. S7). In addition, these cells were positive for the markers of endoderm (AFP), mesoderm (NKX2.5 and CTNT), and ectoderm (TUJ1) in immunocytochemical analysis (Fig. 3a). We transplanted AgHiPSCs subcutaneously into NOD/SCID mouse. Three months after injection, we confirmed the formation of teratoma containing the three germ layers (Fig. 3b). These results indicate that AgHiPSCs are pluripotent and capable of differentiation.
Genome-wide single-nucleotide polymorphism analysis of human androgenetic induced pluripotent stem cells. To measure the recombination rate in AgHiPSCs, we used single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) analysis. AgFibs and AgHiPSCs were homozygous at random SNP markers along each chromosome, whereas H9 cells were heterozygous (Supplementary Data Fig. S9 and Fig. 4). These results show that the genotype of the reprogrammed cells was identical to that of their parental fibroblasts.

Characterization of the known imprinted genes in human androgenetic induced pluripotent stem cells.
To confirm the androgenetic imprinting status of androgenetic cells, we compared the DNA methylation status in the DMRs of the known imprinted genes by using bisulfite sequencing. The paternally imprinted gene H19 was hypermethylated in AgFibs and AgHiPSCs, whereas the maternally imprinted genes MEST, SNRPN, and MAGEL2 were hypomethylated (Fig. 5). SNRPN and MAGEL2 had somatic imprinting status in H9 cells, whereas H19 and MEST were hypermethylated. Epigenetic instability of the imprinted genes H19 and MEST in human ESCs was previously reported 21,[27][28][29] . These results demonstrate the androgenetic imprinting status of AgHiPSCs.

Discussion
In rare cases, parthenogenesis and androgenesis occur spontaneously in humans. The use of the respective uniparental tissues does not require destruction of viable human embryos, which makes uniparental embryos an attractive alternative source of pluripotent stem cells.
www.nature.com/scientificreports www.nature.com/scientificreports/ CHM have only paternal chromosomes. In this study, we established AgFibs from CHM and used them to generate a homogenous population of AgHiPSCs by transduction of transcription factors. AgFibs were reprogrammed to AgHiPSCs despite having only the paternal genome. AgHiPSCs showed characteristic features of typical human ESCs in pluripotency, gene expression profile, in vitro differentiation potential, and in vivo teratoma formation. Several studies have determined the degree of homozygosity of human PgESCs 30-33 and human AgESCs 9 by SNP analysis, which can be used to determine the ratio of heterozygous alleles. Our SNP analysis showed 99.53% homozygosity in AgFibs, 99.48% in AgHiPSCs, and 72.72% in H9 cells. According Ding et al. 9 , human AgESCs were 99.39% homozygous, in contrast to 72.85% homozygosity in H9 cells. These data confirmed that our androgenetic cell lines were homogeneous.
Our previous study reported that the parthenogenetic imprinting status of imprinted genes (H19 and MEST) was maintained in parthenogenetic cell lines during the acquisition of pluripotency 21 . In the present study, we confirmed that the androgenetic imprinting status in DMRs of known imprinted genes (H19, MEST, SNRPN, and MAGEL2) was maintained after reprogramming. Human AgESCs have androgenetic imprinting patterns in the DMRs of the H19, SNRPN, and MEG3 genes 9 . In particular, the DMRs of SNRPN used to verify the methylation status of AgHiPSCs in our study overlap with those used by Ding et al. 9 to confirm the androgenetic imprinting status in human AgESCs. Therefore, our data are in agreement with those of previous studies.
Genomic imprinting has attracted much attention because it is linked to human genetic diseases. Most genetic disorders can be caused by dysfunction of imprinted genes and chromosomal regions. Typically, Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome (hypermethylation at H19) and Russell-Silver syndrome (hypomethylation at H19) are caused by dysregulation of imprinting control in a region of chromosome 11p15 34 www.nature.com/scientificreports www.nature.com/scientificreports/ imprinted genes on chromosome 15q11-q13 36 . Our previous study reported that PgHiPSCs and HiPSCs were differentiated into neural stem cells and the parthenogenetic imprinting status of the PWS/AS-related region was maintained during reprogramming and neural differentiation 37 . Because genetic disorders have diverse mechanisms of mutagenesis, it is important to obtain samples containing cells with uniparental chromosomes in order to identify the causative genes. Since AgHiPSCs can be differentiated into all somatic cell lineages, they can be used for a variety of applications and could be an important tool to study genomic imprinting of imprinted genes related to development and disorders.

Ethics statement. This study is approved by the Institutional Review Board of Konkuk University Medical
Center (KUH 1040045). During the informed consent process, prospective research participants were given comprehensive information about purpose of the research, procedures, and confidentiality. There are no anticipated risks or benefits for participation. Participation is voluntary and may decide to discuss participation with family or friends. Human CHM tissue was collected from consenting donors at Konkuk University Medical Center. All

Derivation of human androgenetic fibroblast cells. CHM were washed with Dulbecco's Phosphate
Buffered Saline (DPBS, Welgene). Collagenase/hyaluronidase (10X stock solution) was purchased from StemCell Technologies. CHM were dissociated into a single-cell suspension by incubating them in 1X collagenase/hyaluronidase and DNase (1 mg/mL) at 37 °C until all large tissue fragments were digested (typically in 50 min). Cell suspension was filtered through a 40 µm cell strainer to remove clumps. Cells were grown in BIOAMF-2 complete medium (Biological Industries). The cell culture medium was changed every other day.

Generation of human androgenetic induced pluripotent stem cells. To prepare the lentivirus, 293T
cells purchased from the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC Cat# CRL-3216) were transfected with 15 μg lentiviral vector 38 by using the Infect transfection reagent (iNtRON) according to the manufacturer's instructions. Supernatants were collected 48 h after transfection and filtered through a 0.45 μm filter unit. Human androgenetic fibroblasts were plated at 20,000 cells per well in a 6-well plate coated with Matrigel and infected with the lentivirus supplemented with 4 μg/ml polybrene (Sigma-Aldrich). Two days after transduction, medium was changed to TeSR-E7 medium (StemCell Technologies). The colonies were picked up and transferred into a 6-well plate coated with Matrigel (Corning) containing mTeSR1 medium (StemCell Technologies).  PCR and quantitative real-time PCR. Total RNA was isolated using a miRNeasy Mini Kit (Qiagen).
Genomic DNA was removed from total RNA using an RNase-Free DNase set (Qiagen). cDNA was synthesized using a High Capacity cDNA Reverse Transcription Kit (Applied Biosystems). Quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) was performed with a Real-Time PCR system (Applied Biosystems) and all reactions were run in triplicate. Primer sequences were described in a previous study 21 . RNA sequencing. Whole-transcriptome library construction and data analysis were carried out. Paired-end RNA sequencing was conducted once in each sample using an Illumina Hiseq 2500 system (Illumina Inc.). Illumina Casava version 1.8.2 software was used for basecalling. The rRNA ratio was checked using Fastq screen version 0.11.1. RNA sequencing reads were aligned to the reference genome (human hg19) using TopHat version 2.0.13 (http://tophat.cbcb.umd.edu) 39 and generated bam files. Abundance was calculated as fragments per kilobase of transcript per million (FPKM) values. Differentially expressed genes were selected (fold change ≥2) and analyzed using Cufflinks version 2.2.0 (http://cufflinks.cbcb.umd.edu) 39 . The RNA sequencing data have been deposited in the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) under the accession number GSE141906 (https://www.ncbi. nlm.nih.gov/geo/query/acc.cgi?acc=GSE141906).
In vivo teratoma formation. Undifferentiated AgHiPSCs were harvested and collected into a tube. The cell pellets were resuspended in a 1:1 mixture of mTeSR and Matrigel. AgHiPSCs were injected subcutaneously into NOD/SCID mouse. After 3 months, teratomas were surgically dissected from the mice, fixed in Bouin's solution (Sigma), embedded in paraffin and stained with hematoxylin and eosin.
Genomic DNA and bisulfite treatment. Genomic DNA was isolated using a G-spin Total DNA Extraction Kit (iNtRON). One μg of genomic DNA was bisulfite converted an EpiTect Bisulfite Kit (Qiagen).