Induced pluripotent stem cells

From Citizendium
Revision as of 15:00, 1 April 2007 by imported>Thomas E Kelly (Added Health Sciences Workgroup. Make sure you learn about workgroups and workgroup categories if you are from Wikipedia.)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Introduction

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) are a class of stem cells that are artificially derived from differentiated embryonic or adult tissues. Therapeutically, iPS cells hold the potential to be used to treat a patient with their own cells (i.e. bone marrow transplant, spinal cord injury repair).

Multiple strategies to generate iPS cells are being developed.

  • Somatic cell nuclear transfer
  • Embryonic stem cell fusion
  • Nuclear Reprogramming

Nuclear Reprogramming

Based on preveious studies, one research group set out to determine which genes are required to be expressed in order to generate/maintain embryonic stem cells.1 In a series of experiments it was determined that 4 factors are required to cause mouse fibroblasts to "dedifferentiate" into a stem-cell like state.

  • Sox2
  • Klf4
  • Oct3/4
  • c-myc

references

1. Takahashi K, Yamanaka S. Induction of pluripotent stem cells from mouse embryonic and adult fibroblast cultures by defined factors. Cell. 2006 Aug 25;126(4):663-76. Epub 2006 Aug 10. PMID: 16904174 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Retrieved from "https://citizendium.org/wiki/index.php?title=Induced_pluripotent_stem_cells&oldid=173359"