Induced pluripotent stem cells - current progress and their potential for regenerative medicine

Abstract

Both human and mouse somatic cells were reported to be reprogrammed to pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) upon viral transduction with a defined set of transcription factors including OCT4, SOX2, KLF4, c-MYC, Nanog and LIN28 in different combinations. Reprogramming of somatic cells to pluripotency enables the derivation of patient-specific pluripotent cells that have great potential for regenerative therapies, studying (embryonic) development and the differentiation process towards different cell lineages. Also, cell lines can be generated to model genetic diseases and derivatives of these could be used in drug screens and toxicology testing. The use of iPS cells for modeling the development of genetic disorders and their use for transplantation therapies after modifying genetic defects have been successfully shown in several reports such as in sickle cell anemia, diabetes and Parkinson’s disease. In contrast to previous reprogramming methods, the derivation of iPS cells circumvents the use of oocytes or embryonic material. However, the use of oncogenes and integrating viruses for generating iPS cells should be avoided since this increases the risk of tumor formation. The recent findings that mouse and human iPS cells can be derived with non intregrating vectors and the removal of exogenous reprogramming factors after reprogramming increases the possibility of the future use of iPS cells for clinical applications.