Convergent functional genomics of stem cell-derived cells

Abstract

Stem cell technologies provide an exciting avenue to directly access the transcriptome of patients in neuronal-like cell types, which might have more direct relevance to brain research than other peripheral tissues (blood, fibroblasts). Enthusiasm should be tempered by concerns that artifacts and noise might be generated as part of the in vitro process of creating and maintaining these cell type. A solution may be to apply a Convergent Functional Genomics approach, where the data from stem cell-derived neuronal cells are integrated, cross-validated and prioritized using independent lines of evidence from other approaches and platforms (human genetic data, human postmortem brain data, animal model data). I provide a brief overview and an example in support of such an approach.