Most human neuronal disorders are associated with genetic alterations that cause defects in neuronal development and induce precocious neurodegeneration. In order to fully characterize the molecular mechanisms underlying the onset of these devastating diseases, it is important to establish in vitro models able to recapitulate the human pathology as closely as possible. Here we compared three di...

Many forms of blindness result from the dysfunction or loss of retinal photoreceptors. Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) hold great potential for the modelling of these diseases or as potential therapeutic agents. However, to fulfill this promise, a remaining challenge is to induce human iPSC to recreate in vitro key structural and functional features of the native retina, in particular th...

objective: induced pluripotent stem cells are generated from somatic cells by direct reprogramming. these reprogrammed pluripotent cells have different applications in biomedical fields such as regenerative medicine. although viral vectors are widely used for efficient reprogramming, they have limited applications in the clinic due to the risk for immunogenicity and insertional mutagenesis. acc...

The combination of human genetics, animal models, and induced pluripotent stem cells is likely to revolutionize our understanding of neuropsychiatric disorders, leading to new therapies and insights into how the normal human brain works. This is the territory I would explore if I were starting my research career today.

Genes that are subject to genomic imprinting in mammals are preferentially expressed from a single parental allele. This imprinted expression of a small number of genes is crucial for normal development, as these genes often directly regulate fetal growth. Recent work has also demonstrated intricate roles for imprinted genes in the brain, with important consequences on behavior and neuronal fun...

Although schizophrenia affects a number of brain regions and produces a range of clinical symptoms, we believe its origins lie at the level of single neurons and simple networks. Owing to this, as well as to its high degree of heritability, we hypothesize that schizophrenia is amenable to cell-based studies in vitro. Using induced pluripotent stem cell-derived neurons and/or fibroblast-induced ...

Factors limiting the adoption of iPSC technology include the cost of developing lines and the time period that it takes to characterize and bank them, particularly when integration free, feeder free, and Xeno-free components are used. In this manuscript we describe our optimization procedure that enables a single technician to make 20-40 lines at a time in a 24-96 well format in a reliable and ...

A number of pathogens, including several human-restricted organisms, persist and replicate within macrophages (Mφs) as a key step in pathogenesis. The mechanisms underpinning such host-restricted intracellular adaptations are poorly understood, in part, due to a lack of appropriate model systems. Here we explore the potential of human induced pluripotent stem cell derived macrophages (iPSDMs) t...

Keisuke Okita1), and Shinya Yamanaka1-4,*) 1)Center for iPS Cell Research and Application (CiRA), Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606-8507, Japan 2)Department of Stem Cell Biology, Institute for Frontier Medical Sciences, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606-8507, Japan 3)CREST and Yamanaka iPS Cell Project, Japan Science and Technology Agency, Kawaguchi 332-0012...

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) were first described in 2006 and have since emerged as a promising cell source for clinical applications. The rapid progression in iPSC technology is still ongoing and directed toward increasing the efficacy of iPSC production and reducing the immunogenic and tumorigenic potential of these cells. Enormous efforts have been made to apply iPSC-based technolo...