iPS cell reprogramming

Abstract

Recently, pluripotent cells that are not derived from an embryo have been generated. These so called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) are pluripotent stem cells that are induced from mouse or human somatic cells by introduction of different factors. These iPS cells are similar to ESC in pluripotency, morphology, proliferation, teratoma formation, gene expression and DNA methylation patterns. Here a comprehensive overview and comparison of the currently available technologies for iPS cells reprogramming have been presented. iPS cell reprogramming has promising new biomedical applications, such as the generation of patient specific iPS cells for disease modeling and drug discovery and eventually the generation of customized iPS cells for therapeutic application, such as cell therapy.