- de Majo, Martina;
- Koontz, Mark;
- Marsan, Elise;
- Salinas, Nir;
- Ramsey, Arren;
- Kuo, Yien-Ming;
- Seo, Kyounghee;
- Li, Huinan;
- Dräger, Nina;
- Leng, Kun;
- Gonzales, Santiago L;
- Kurnellas, Michael;
- Miyaoka, Yuichiro;
- Klim, Joseph R;
- Kampmann, Martin;
- Ward, Michael E;
- Huang, Eric J;
- Ullian, Erik M
Loss of function (LoF) of TAR-DNA binding protein 43 (TDP-43) and mis-localization, together with TDP-43-positive and hyperphosphorylated inclusions, are found in post-mortem tissue of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) patients, including those carrying LoF variants in the progranulin gene (GRN). Modeling TDP-43 pathology has been challenging in vivo and in vitro. We present a three-dimensional induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived paradigm-mature brain organoids (mbOrg)-composed of cortical-like-astrocytes (iA) and neurons. When devoid of GRN, mbOrgs spontaneously recapitulate TDP-43 mis-localization, hyperphosphorylation, and LoF phenotypes. Mixing and matching genotypes in mbOrgs showed that GRN-/- iA are drivers for TDP-43 pathology. Finally, we rescued TDP-43 LoF by adding exogenous progranulin, demonstrating a link between TDP-43 LoF and progranulin expression. In conclusion, we present an iPSC-derived platform that shows striking features of human TDP-43 proteinopathy and provides a tool for the mechanistic modeling of TDP-43 pathology and patient-tailored therapeutic screening for FTD and ALS.