gms | German Medical Science

Introduction: Pluripotent stem cells have the exceptional potential to differentiate into any cell type or tissue of the human body making them, a valuable tool in basic biomedical research. Stem cell-related research data requires appropriate data management measures regarding reusability and reproducibility. Here we describe our approach towards a suitable metadata model and its implementation into an IT-tool to support documentation and representation of human induced pluripotent stem cell lines for biomedical basic research as a module of the Research Data Platform (RDP) for the Collaborative Research Centre 1002 (CRC 1002) [1].

State of the Art: In basic biomedical research, the amount of generated research data is steadily increasing [2]. This creates completely new challenges for the management of research data. With regard to the publication of research results based on the collected research data, the sustainability and reproducibility of data must be ensured. While local spreadsheets should be avoided as a technical solution [3], the Human Pluripotent Stem Cell Registry (hPSCreg) offers a platform for representing human stem cell lines on an international level while providing a nomenclature for naming cell lines based on recommendations by M. Luong et al. [4] and A. Kurtz et al. [5].

Concept: In close collaboration with the Stem Cell Unit (SCU) of the University Medical Center Goettingen, requirements for a FAIR [6] documentation and representation of human stem cell lines to supersede spreadsheets were acquired. The nomenclature and essential key parameters from the hPSCreg metadata schema were taken into account. The resulting requirements led to the donor-based design of a Cell Model Catalogue (CMC) for storing the general data of each cell line together with the clinical data of the respective donor and connecting these to separate clinical data management systems where further information about donors is stored.

Implementation: We developed the CMC as a module of the web-based RDP of the CRC 1002. The module enables the documentation of human cell lines (primarily induced pluripotent stem cell lines), the cataloguing and searching of the stored cell lines as well as linking the cell lines with publications stored in a separate module of the RDP. The CMC holds general data about the cell line (e.g. name, provider) and the culture (e.g. source material, sampling date), the donor (e.g. age, gender) and the respective diagnosis. We also included fields like virus testing, HLA typing and consent form information as well as developing an initial interface for generating a name via the hPSCreg naming tool for subsequent transfer into the registry [7].

Lessons Learned: A common international standard for naming and documentation of cell lines does not yet exist. The hPSCreg repository offers a sound template for the documentation of human cell lines. Combining hPSCreg with local data management requirements is a complex task so that interfaces between documentation tools need future improvements.

This work was funded by the DFG for the Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) 1002 on Modulatory Units in Heart Failure, subproject INF.

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

The authors declare that an ethics committee vote is not required.