Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and embryonic stem cells (ESCs) are two types of pluripotent stem cells that hold great promise for biomedical research and medical applications. iPSCs were initially favorably compared to ESCs. This view was first based on ethical arguments (the generation of iPSCs does not require the destruction of an embryo) and on immunological reasons (it is easier t...

Mobilized peripheral blood (MPB) CD34+ cells were cultured to CD41+/CD34+ megakaryoblasts. Cells were sorted to obtain a pure megakaryoblast population that was reprogramed by a hOKSM self-silencing polycistronic vector using lentiviral delivery. The generated induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) lines were tested for silencing of the reprogramming construct by flow cytometry. Pluripotency of M...

Acquiring induced pluripotent stem cells (IPSC) lines from probands with rare diseases allows investigating properties of difficult to obtain tissues. We obtained IPSC dermal fibroblasts two patients recessive form dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa (RDEB) using the kit Sendai virus mediated gene transfer. Patients have different mutation types in COL7A1 and RDEB forms. approved IPSCs status expr...

Allografts of retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells have been considered for the treatment of ocular diseases. We recently started the transplantation of induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived RPE cells for patients with age-related macular degeneration (autogenic grafts). However, there are at least two problems with this approach: (1) high cost, and (2) uselessness for acute patients. ...

A variety of somatic cells can be reprogrammed to induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), but CD34(+) hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) present in nonmobilized peripheral blood (PB) would be a convenient target. We report a method for deriving iPSC from PB HSCs using immunobead purification and 2- to 4-day culture to enrich CD34(+) HSCs to 80% ± 9%, followed by reprogramming with loxP-flanked pol...

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) hold promise for treating recessive dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa (RDEB). An iPSC-based therapy RDEB involves multiple steps such as reprogramming, gene correction, iPSC differentiation, and transplantation of genetically corrected iPSC-derived skin onto patients. Strong evidence supports the use epidermal sheets or composite grafts final therapeutic pr...

APOE genotype is the strongest genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). The low degree of homology between mouse and human a concerning issue in preclinical models currently used to study role this gene AD pathophysiology. A key objective ADAPTED (Alzheimer's Apolipoprotein Pathology Treatment Elucidation Development) project was generate vitro that better recapitulate biology. We desc...

Our understanding on how selective mitochondrial autophagy, or mitophagy, can sustain the archetypal properties of stem cells is incomplete. PTEN-induced putative kinase 1 (PINK1) plays a key role in the maintenance of mitochondrial morphology and function and in the selective degradation of damaged mitochondria by mitophagy. Here, using embryonic fibroblasts fromPINK1 gene-knockout (KO) mice, ...

INTRODUCTION Anesthetic preconditioning protects cardiomyocytes from oxidative stress-induced injury, but it is ineffective in patients with diabetes mellitus. To address the role of hyperglycemia in the inability of diabetic individuals to be preconditioned, we used human cardiomyocytes differentiated from induced pluripotent stem cells generated from patients with or without type 2 diabetes m...

Targeted genetic engineering of human pluripotent cells is a prerequisite for exploiting their full potential. Such genetic manipulations can be achieved using site-specific nucleases. Here we engineered transcription activator–like effector nucleases (TALENs) for five distinct genomic loci. At all loci tested we obtained human embryonic stem cell (ESC) and induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) ...