Induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology has emerged as the most promising method for generating patient-specific human embryonic stem (ES) cells and adult stem cells (Takahashi et al., 2007, Cell 131:861-872; Wernig et al., 2007, Nature 448:318-324; Park et al., 2008, Nature 451:141-146). So far, most studies of direct reprogramming have been done by using lentiviruses/retroviruses enco...

Human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) are capable of differentiating into any cell type and provide significant advances to cell therapy and regenerative medicine. However, the current protocol for hiPSC generation is relatively inefficient and often results in many partially reprogrammed colonies, which increases the cost and reduces the applicability of hiPSCs. Biophysical stimulation...

INTRODUCTION: Acute impact-induced joint trauma often affects young and middleaged adults and significantly increases the risk of developing posttraumatic osteoarthritis. Since joint replacement surgery is not a realistic option for young individuals, there is a need for the development of alternative therapies to treat large cartilage defects. Because of their unlimited self-renewal, developme...

The emergence of new methods for reprogramming of adult somatic cells into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) led to the development of new approaches in drug discovery and regenerative medicine. Investigation of the molecular mechanisms underlying the self-renewal, expansion and differentiation of human iPSC (hiPSC) should lead to improvements in the manufacture of safe and reliable cell th...

Neurons derived from human induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (hiPSCs) provide a promising new tool for studying neurological disorders. In the past decade, many protocols for differentiating hiPSCs into neurons have been developed. However, these protocols are often slow with high variability, low reproducibility, and low efficiency. In addition, the neurons obtained with these protocols are often...

Exonic deletions in NRXN1 have been associated with several neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism, schizophrenia and developmental delay. However, the molecular mechanism by which NRXN1 deletions impact neurodevelopment remains unclear. Here we used human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) and human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) as models to investigate the functional impacts of NR...

The extensive molecular characterization of human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs), human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) and human-induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) is required before they can be applied in the future for personalized medicine and drug discovery. Despite the efforts that have been made with kinome analyses, we still lack in-depth insights into the molecular signatures of rece...

The potential clinical applications of human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) are limited by genetic and epigenetic variations among hiPSC lines and the question of their equivalency with human embryonic stem cells (hESCs). We used MethylScreen technology to determine the DNA methylation profile of pluripotency and differentiation markers in hiPSC lines from different source cell types c...

Although distinct human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC) lines can display considerable epigenetic variation, it has been unclear whether such variability impacts their utility for disease modeling. Here, we show that although low-passage female hiPSCs retain the inactive X chromosome of the somatic cell they are derived from, over time in culture they undergo an "erosion" of X chromosome ...

Although human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) hold great potential for the study of human diseases affecting disparate cell types, they have been underutilized in seeking mechanistic insights into the pathogenesis of congenital craniofacial disorders. Craniofrontonasal syndrome (CFNS) is a rare X-linked disorder caused by mutations in EFNB1 and characterized by craniofacial, skeletal, ...