Astrocytes derived from NPCs showed high homogeneity in canonical astrocyte-specific markers GFAP and up-regulation of astrocyte-specific transcripts such as GFAP, S100B, APOE, and LCN2. Expression of mature astrocyte-specific markers such as GLT1, GRIA1 and GRM1 further suggest the functionality of the resulted astrocytes while lower expression level of these mature astrocyte markers in HD astrocytes suggest astrocytic dysfunction in glutamate uptake. Here, SLC1A2 is linked to Huntington disease.