将成人神经祖细胞重编程为诱导多能干细胞

Reprogramming of adult human neural precursor cells into induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells

Since an effective method for generating human neural precursor (NP) cells induced iPS cells can offer us a promising tool for studying human brain diseases, here we report direct reprogramming of adult human NP cells into iPS cells by retroviral transduction using four defined factors. NP cells were successfully isolated and cultured from the hippocampus tissue of epilepsy patients. When combined with four factors (Oct3/4, Sox2, Klf4, and c-Myc), iPS cell colonies were successfully obtained. Morphology, gene expression, and epigenetic status confirmed that these hNP-derived iPS cells exhibited ESC-like properties, including the ability to differentiate into all three germ layers both in vitro and in teratomas. Hence, our optimized method would be useful for generating human iPS cells from hNP cells and provide an important tool for studying neural system diseases.