Retinal Organoids

Retinal Organoid Model

Accelerate your lead compound selection by understanding their mode of action in functional retinal tissue

Complex functional human retina model

Well-characterised and reproducible

Ready-to-use

Light responsive retinal organoids for accurate prediction of clinical outcomes

The retinal organoids are MPS systems that recapitulate the complex structure of the human retina with polarised laminar cell organisation mimicking embryonic development. These advanced retinal organoids also contain the outer photoreceptor segment of the retina that responds to light.

Applications of Retinal Organoids

Gene therapy vector assessment using retinal organoids
Disease modelling with advanced retinal organoid systems
Investigational drug safety and efficacy

Available analytical readouts from our services on retinal organoids

Immunofluorescence analysis
mRNA quantification by RT-qPCR
Transcriptomic analysis by single-cell RNA sequencing
Cytotoxicity assays
Cytokine release
Flow cytometry
Electron microscopy

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A microscope image of retinal organoids — Cone photoreceptor cells labelled with anti-Opsin (Red/Green) antibody.

Origin

Healthy donor

Multiple cell types

3D structure

Lead Time

4-6 Weeks

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Products

Fresh retinal organoids
Retinal organoid cell pellets
Frozen sections of retinal organoids
Standard offering at Day 150 (D150)
Customisable time points available D30, D60, D90, D120, D180, D210

Cell Types

Rod and cone photoreceptors
Retinal ganglion cells
Bipolar cells
Horizontal cells
Amacrine cells
Müller glial cells

Origin

Human iPSCs (Healthy donor)

How to use our retinal organoid model?

Order organoids for use in your lab

Newcells provides on demand supply of fresh retinal organoids through regular batch release every 4-6 weeks. We also provide retinal organoids as cell pellets, total RNA sample and frozen sections slides to suit multiple applications.

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Outsource your experiments to us

Take advantage of our expertise: with a fast and reliable service, the Newcells team of experts design the experiments with you to answer your questions and give you the results within 2 months. the studies are carried out with Newcells validated retinal organoids. Alternatively, Newcells has the capability to generate organoids from customer's cells, and perform the assays. All bespoke projects are carried out in state-of-the-art UK facilities.

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Newcells Retinal Organoids

Hannah Steward, Associate Scientist

Applications for retinal organoids Close Open

Gene therapy, including in vitro viral vector evaluation
Disease modelling
Investigational drug safety and efficacy

Retinal Organoid Characterisation Close Open

In vitro retinal organoid differentiation follows the embryonic development timeline, spanning 150 to 210 days. The temporal order of retinogenesis is comparable to in vivo, recapitulating critical features of foetal retinal tissue including the laminar organisation of cell types.

The organoids include retinal ganglion cells, horizontal cells, amacrine cells and photoreceptors (including cone and rod photoreceptors). Depending on the cell type of interest, the retinal organoids can be used at different stages of development (usually between D60 and D210). For example, retinal ganglion cells are more prevalent at D60 whereas the photoreceptors have a peak expression at later time points.

Schematic representation of the retina

The differentiation process is fully characterised and monitored through the analysis of biomarkers specific for each cell type. For example, for cone photoreceptors, we monitor the expression of OPNSW, OPNMW, OPNLW, ARR3, RXRG; for rod photoreceptors we use RHO and NRL and for retinal ganglion cells we follow MATH5 (ATOH7) and BRN3 (POU4F2). Our organoids are validated for many applications.

Retinal organoids description Close Open

Characteristics of iPSC-derived retinal organoids:

Size: ~1.3 mm in diameter
Number of cells: ~ 40,000
Cell types: retinal ganglion cells, horizontal cells, amacrine cell and photoreceptors (including cone and rod photoreceptors)
Structure: fully-stratified, similar to the human retina
Main characteristics: formation of primitive photoreceptor outer segments, recapitulate retinogenesis in vitro
Other characteristics: responsive to known toxins, functional and responsive to light, all cell layers allow drug permeation

Light-driven spiking activity recorded from presumed ON-Centre retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) and OFF-Centre RGCs. In the raster plot, each small vertical bar indicates the time stamp of a spike, where each row represents a different RGC. The left half illustrates the activity before stimulus onset and separated by the red line, the right half illustrates the activity when exposed to light.

Retinal organoids available to order as Close Open

Fresh retinal organoids

Supplied at D150 of differentiation as standard
Custom time points available : D60, D180
Optimized cell culture medium
Origin : human iPSCs (healthy donor)

Retinal organoids cell pellets

Supplied at D150 of differentiation as standard
Custom time points available: D30, D60, D90, D120, D180, D210
Origin : human iPSCs (healthy donor)

Frozen sections of retinal organoids

10μm frozen sections of retinal organoids
ready for immunofluorescence staining
Supplied at D150 of differentiation as standard
Custom time points : D30, D60, D90, D120, D180, D210
Origin : human iPSCs (healthy donor)

Catalogue reference Close Open

Services

Disease Modelling

We ethically source patient lines or use gene editing to produce models of retinopathies.

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Retinal toxicity evaluation

High throughput in vitro drug screening for retinal safety/toxicity and efficacy testing.

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Gene therapy

Rapid in vitro preclinical evaluation of viral vectors for retinal therapy development.

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Images

Localization and distribution of photoreceptors (RCVRN, green) and retinal ganglion cells (SNCG, red) in retinal organoids at d150. Nuclear DAPI staining (blue)

Localization and distribution of Müller glia cells (CRALBP, red) in retinal organoids. Nuclear DAPI staining (blue). — Localization and distribution of Müller glia cells (CRALBP, red) in retinal organoids at d180. Nuclear DAPI staining (blue).

Presence of rod photoreceptors (RHO+) at different stages of development in iPSC-derived retinal organoids. ‘d’ refers to ‘days of differentiation’.

Presence of green and red cone photoreceptors (OPN1MW/LW+) at different stages of development in iPSC-derived retinal organoids. ‘d’ refers to ‘days of differentiation’.

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