Embryonic Stem Cells 2.0: Scientists’ enthusiasm grows for induced pluripotent cells
Bruce Goldman has this report on Nature.com that begins:
When Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University reported his transformation of cultured mouse skin cells into a state approximating that of embryonic stem cells1, he was met with plenty of scepticism. Other scientists hadn’t anticipated that such a feat was possible. “Nobody else was even close to doing the same experiment,” says Richard Young of the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “That was a very special breakthrough.”
By inserting just four genes — Oct4, Sox2, Klf4 and Myc — into fibroblasts (cultured skin cells), Yamanaka’s group had achieved the biological equivalent of making water flow uphill. The resultant induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells proliferate indefinitely in culture and differentiate into all the tissues necessary to generate a live mouse2, 3.
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[...] “When Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University reported his transformation of cultured mouse skin cells into a state approximating that of embryonic stem cells, he was met with plenty of scepticism. Other scientists hadn’t anticipated that … Read More [...]