BACKGROUND For therapeutic usage of induced Pluripotent Stem (iPS) cells, to accomplish xeno-free culture is critical. Previous reports have shown that human embryonic stem (ES) cells can be maintained in feeder-free condition. However, absence of feeder cells can be a hostile environment for pluripotent cells and often results in karyotype abnormalities. Instead of animal feeders, human fibrob...

The generation of pluripotent stem cells from an individual patient would enable the large-scale production of the cell types affected by that patient's disease. These cells could in turn be used for disease modeling, drug discovery, and eventually autologous cell replacement therapies. Although recent studies have demonstrated the reprogramming of human fibroblasts to a pluripotent state, it r...

Studies on cell fusion-mediated nuclear reprogramming have led to the breakthrough of the induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell technology. While this technology has neared stem cells to applications more than any other method, the mechanistic bases of reprogramming remain largely unsolved. In this context, comparative studies of oocyte and cell fusion-mediated reprogramming hold the greatest pro...

The generation of patient-specific pluripotent stem cells has the potential to accelerate the implementation of stem cells for clinical treatment of degenerative diseases. Technologies including somatic cell nuclear transfer and cell fusion might generate such cells but are hindered by issues that might prevent them from being used clinically. Here, we describe methods to use dermal fibroblasts...

population whose primary function is to generate progeny that then develop into terminally differentiated cell types, such as a cardiomyocytes, neurons or photoreceptors. Tissuespecific adult stem cells, or progenitors, are committed to producing tissue or lineage-specific cells, whereas totipotent or pluripotent stem cells can give rise to any of the 200+ cell types of the body. There are two ...

In 2006, a team of scientists discovered a method to create pluripotent stem cells—cells that have the potential to become almost any other type of cell in the human body—by inserting specific genes into a skin cell. The resulting cells were called induced pluripotent stem cells (“iPS cells”). The ability to manufacture stem cells could eventually eliminate the need to harvest stem cells from e...

Reprogramming of mouse and human somatic cells into induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells has been possible with retroviral expression of the pluripotency-associated transcription factors Oct4, Sox2, Nanog, and Lin28 as well as Klf4 and c-Myc. iPS cells hold great potential as a model for diseases from the perspective of the individual patient and as an alternative source of pluripotent stem cel...

Lamin A is an inner nuclear membrane protein that maintains nuclear structure integrity, is involved in transcription, DNA damage response and genomic stability, and also links to cell differentiation, senescence, premature aging and associated diseases. Induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells have been successfully generated from various types of cells and used to model human diseases. It remains...

Pluripotent embryonic stem (ES) cells are specialized cells with a dynamic chromatin structure, which is intimately connected with their pluripotency and physiology. In recent years somatic cells have been reprogrammed to a pluripotent state through over-expression of a defined set of transcription factors. These cells, known as induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, recapitulate ES cell propert...

Recent new technologies enabling the genetic modification of human embryonic stem cells (hESC) and the derivation of patient-specific induced Pluripotent Stem cells (iPS cells) provide attractive opportunities for the development of new cell-based bioassays. Both technologies critically depend on the selection of pluripotent cell colonies. AVISO’s CellCelector enables automated colony detection...