Fig. 1.

Schematic illustration showing that iPSCs generated from ALS patients differentiate into motor neurons for functional and morphological analysis. (A) ALS patients’ somatic cells are collected with donors’ informed consent under institutional review board monitoring (A) and the cells can be reprogrammed to the induced pluripotent state (B). After motor neuron differentiation of ALS patient’s iPSCs (C), further studies of the disease can be performed to assess physiological properties (D), providing a link to the level of maturation. The examination of morphological changes such as neurite length (E) subcellular aggregate (F), and patient-specific samples can be used to characterize the pathogenesis of ALS in patient-derived iPSCs. Nu: nucleus.