Abstract
The blood-brain barrier （BBB） regulates the transport of substances between the brain and blood by forming tight junctions of brain microvascular endothelial cells. It is important for the development of drug delivery technology into the brain and effective CNS drugs to construct in vitro BBB models that enable the evaluation of transport into the human brain. However, evaluations in experimental animals, or existing models of human cells, have revealed their problems with species differences and tight junction formation. Recently, a method has been developed to differentiate brain microvascular endothelial cells from human iPS cells, which is expected to be a new human BBB model. In order to apply it to drug discovery and disease research, it is necessary to evaluate the variety of functional proteins in the BBB as well as the ability to form tight junctions in this human BBB model. In this review, we describe our research regarding the function of transporters in human iPS cells-derived BBB model and outline the usefulness of this model, including the differentiation methods and applications in disease research.
