Electrophysiological characterization of human dopaminergic neurons derived from LUHMES cells

The loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra plays an important role in the development of the Parkinson’s disease The symptoms of this disease typically occur after around 80 of these neurons degenerated This cell decay can be caused or promoted by genetic defects or environmental factors
including chemical compounds like pesticides For proper testing of neurotoxic effects on these neurons as well as for the development of neuroprotective drugs, assays based on animal primary cells lack predictivity due to mostly weak correlation between animal and human data. Therefore, models based on
human neuronal cells have a high potential to overcome the limitations of animal models One interesting neuronal cell line is the LUHMES (Lund human mesencephalic) line, which consists of immortalized fetal human mesencephalic cells that can be differentiated into fully postmitotic dopaminergic neurons in 6 days Scholz et al 2011 We here describe functional properties of these cells as a fundament for the
development of LUHMES based pharmacological assays.