Induction of Pluripotent Stem Cells From Adult Human Fibroblasts by Defined Factors

If it were possible to reprogram differentiated human somatic cells into a pluripotent state, patient-specific and disease-specific stem cells could be developed. Previous work generated induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells capable of germline transmission from murine somatic cells by transducing 4 transcription factors: Oct3/4, Sox2, Klf4, and c-Myc. The investigators now report generating iPS cells from adult human dermal fibroblasts using the same 4 factors. The first step was to optimize retroviral transduction in human fibroblasts as well as conditions of culture. Amphotrophic retrovirus was utilized. Colonies resembling human embryonic stem (hES) cell colonies were observed about 25 days after sampling…