Induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells have been generated from human somatic cells by ectopic expression of four Yamanaka factors. Here, we report that Survivin, an apoptosis inhibitor, can enhance iPS cells generation from human neural progenitor cells (NPCs) together with one factor OCT4 (1F-OCT4-Survivin). Compared with 1F-OCT4, Survivin accelerates the process of reprogramming from human NPC...

The antidiabetic drug metformin efficiently circumvents the dilemma that in reducing the tumourigenicity of stem cells, their essence, specifically their pluripotency, must also be sacrificed. Metformin prevents the occurrence or drastically reduces the size and weight of teratoma-like masses after the transplantation of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells into immunodeficient mice. Yet, iPS c...

It has recently been demonstrated that mouse and human fibroblasts can be reprogrammed into an embryonic stem cell-like state by introducing combinations of four transcription factors. However, the therapeutic potential of such induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells remained undefined. By using a humanized sickle cell anemia mouse model, we show that mice can be rescued after transplantation with...

Little is known about differences between induced pluripotent stem cells produced from tissues originating from the same germ layer. We have generated human myoblast-derived iPS cells by retroviral transduction of human primary myoblasts with the OCT3/4, SOX2, KLF4 and MYC coding sequences and compared them to iPS produced from human primary fibroblasts. When cultivated in vitro, these iPS cell...

Shinya Yamanaka [5] gained international prominence after publishing articles detailing the successful generation of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, first in mice, then in humans [6]. Yamanaka induced somatic cells to act like human embryonic stem cells [7] (hESCs), allowing researchers to experiment with non-embryonic stem cells [7] with a similar capacity as hESCs. The research involvin...

Although a variety of reprogramming strategies have been reported to create transgene-free induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells from differentiated cell sources, a fundamental question still remains: Can we generate safe iPS cells that have the full spectrum of features of corresponding embryonic stem (ES) cells? Studies in transgene-free mouse iPS cells have indicated a positive answer to this...

Pluripotency, the capacity of a cell to give rise to differentiated derivatives that represent each of the three primary germ layers, belongs to the cells that are located within the inner cell mass (ICM) of the developing blastocyst. Functional studies have identified a group of transcription factors, the pluripotency transcription factors that affect the pluripotent capacity. Within this grou...

Research on somatic cell reprogramming has progressed significantly over the past few decades, from nuclear transfer into frogs' eggs in 1952 to the derivation of human-induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells in the present day. In this article, I review five landmark papers that have laid the foundation for current efforts to apply somatic cell reprogramming in the clinic.

The recent development of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell technology brings cell and gene therapies to patients one large step closer to reality. Technical improvements in various research fields sometimes come together fortuitously, leading to approaches to treating disease. If iPS cell technology continues to progress smoothly as expected and is actually applied to patients, the next logi...

Somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) has been proved capable of reprogramming various differentiated somatic cells into pluripotent stem cells. Recently, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) have been successfully derived from mouse and human somatic cells by the over-expression of a combination of transcription factors. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying the reprogramming mediated by...