Conversion of Human Somatic- to Pluripotent Cells under Appropriate Gene Control
In online edition of Science (DOI: 10.1126/science.1151526), a breakthrough news on the use of human skin cells having the potency of stem cell lines was published in the form a report captioned, “Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Lines Derived from Human Somatic Cells”. In their research findings, twelve authors under the leadership of Professor JA Thompson (affiliated to three Madison- based research centers, namely, the Genome Center of Wisconsin, Wisconsin National Primate Res. Center and WiCell Res. Inst.) reveal that it is possible to reprogram somatic cell nuclei to an undifferentiated state by four genes: OCT4, SOX2, NANOG, and LIN28 and that reprogrammed human somatic cells behave like pluripotent stem cells, i.e., they differentiate into any of the three germ layers: endoderm, mesoderm, or ectoderm. Following characterize the transformed skin cells: they a) have normal karyotypes (chromosome morphology), b) express telomerase activity (an enzyme that regulates the telomere end of the chromosome), c) express cell surface markers and d) contain genes that confer them characteristics of stem cells, capable of developing and differentiating into advanced stages of all the above three primary germ- layers. Once the impediments such as blocking of mutation following viral integration and satisfactory solution of other technical glitches are found, induced pluripotent cell lines will open up new vista in drug development for cure of many advanced-age diseases such as Alzheimer making an end of the bitter controversy centering round the use of human embryonic stem cells.
