Direct Conversion of Fibroblasts to Neurons by Reprogramming PTB-Regulated MicroRNA Circuits

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Highlights? Diminished PTB expression is sufficient to trans-differentiate fibroblasts to neurons ? PTB plays a key role in a regulatory loop to suppress neuronal-specific genes ? PTB regulates gene expression at both the splicing and RNA stability levels ? PTB modulates microRNA targeting by competition or switching RNA structure     

Direct Reprogramming of Human Fibroblasts to Functional and Expandable Hepatocytes

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体细胞直接重编程为神经元和神经干细胞

体细胞直接重编程是由已分化细胞类型不经过诱导型多能干细胞(Induced pluripotent stem cells,i PSCs)中间阶段,直接转换为另一种细胞类型的重编程过程。体细胞直接重编程避免了i PSC技术存在的重编程效率低下、引入致癌基因等多种缺陷,并为细胞替换治疗和个性化医药研发设想贡献了新的实现途径。现代医学对于诸如神经退行性疾病、神经遗传疾病和外伤导致的神经细胞受损等一些神经系统疾病一直没有有效的治疗手段。而体细胞直接重编程为治疗这些疾病提供了另一种治疗途径,因此体细胞直接重编程为神经细胞相关领域迅速成为研究热点。回顾了体细胞重编程为诱导型神经元(Induced neurons,i Ns)和诱导型神经干细胞(Induced neural stem cells,i NSCs)的最新研究进展,并探讨i Ns和i NSCs在临床应用上的各自优势、局限性及应用前景。     

Direct Reprogramming of Somatic Cells to Neurons: Pros and Cons of Chemical Approach

Neurochemical Research - Translating successful preclinical research in neurodegenerative diseases into clinical practice has been difficult. The preclinical disease models used for testing new...     

Direct Reprogramming of Rat Neural Precursor Cells and Fibroblasts into Pluripotent Stem Cells

Background

Given the usefulness of rats as an experimental system, an efficient method for generating rat induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells would provide researchers with a powerful tool for studying human physiology and disease. Here, we report direct reprogramming of rat neural precursor (NP) cells and rat embryonic fibroblasts (REF) into iPS cells by retroviral transduction using either three (Oct3/4, Sox2, and Klf4), four (Oct3/4, Sox2, Klf4, and c-Myc), or five (Oct3/4, Sox2, Klf4, c-Myc, and Nanog) genes.

Methodology and Principal Findings

iPS cells were generated from both NP and REF using only three (Oct3/4, Sox2, and Klf4) genes without c-Myc. Two factors were found to be critical for efficient derivation and maintenance of rat iPS cells: the use of rat instead of mouse feeders, and the use of small molecules specifically inhibiting mitogen-activated protein kinase and glycogen synthase kinase 3 pathways. In contrast, introduction of embryonic stem cell (ESC) extracts induced partial reprogramming, but failed to generate iPS cells. However, when combined with retroviral transduction, this method generated iPS cells with significantly higher efficiency. Morphology, gene expression, and epigenetic status confirmed that these rat iPS cells exhibited ESC-like properties, including the ability to differentiate into all three germ layers both in vitro and in teratomas. In particular, we found that these rat iPS cells could differentiate to midbrain-like dopamine neurons with a high efficiency.

Conclusions/Significance

Given the usefulness of rats as an experimental system, our optimized method would be useful for generating rat iPS cells from diverse tissues and provide researchers with a powerful tool for studying human physiology and disease.     

Improved Methods for Reprogramming Human Dermal Fibroblasts Using Fluorescence Activated Cell Sorting

Current methods to derive induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) lines from human dermal fibroblasts by viral infection rely on expensive and lengthy protocols. One major factor contributing to the time required to derive lines is the ability of researchers to identify fully reprogrammed unique candidate clones from a mixed cell population containing transformed or partially reprogrammed cells and fibroblasts at an early time point post infection. Failure to select high quality colonies early in the derivation process results in cell lines that require increased maintenance and unreliable experimental outcomes. Here, we describe an improved method for the derivation of iPSC lines using fluorescence activated cell sorting (FACS) to isolate single cells expressing the cell surface marker signature CD13^NEGSSEA4^POSTra-1-60^POS on day 7–10 after infection. This technique prospectively isolates fully reprogrammed iPSCs, and depletes both parental and “contaminating” partially reprogrammed fibroblasts, thereby substantially reducing the time and reagents required to generate iPSC lines without the use of defined small molecule cocktails. FACS derived iPSC lines express common markers of pluripotency, and possess spontaneous differentiation potential in vitro and in vivo. To demonstrate the suitability of FACS for high-throughput iPSC generation, we derived 228 individual iPSC lines using either integrating (retroviral) or non- integrating (Sendai virus) reprogramming vectors and performed extensive characterization on a subset of those lines. The iPSC lines used in this study were derived from 76 unique samples from a variety of tissue sources, including fresh or frozen fibroblasts generated from biopsies harvested from healthy or disease patients.     

直接重编程用于心脏再生治疗的研究进展

心脏再生治疗有望改变现有的心血管病治疗局面,直接重编程领域的研究为实现这一目标提供了新的有力工具。直接重编程是近年来广泛应用于细胞修复及器官移植研究的一项技术,可绕过诱导多功能干细胞中间阶段,直接将一种终末分化细胞转化为其他种类的终末分化细胞。总结了直接重编程用于心脏再生治疗的研究进展,探讨直接重编程技术尚存的问题和障碍,并展望其未来在再生医学领域的应用。     

Deconstructing Stepwise Fate Conversion of Human Fibroblasts to Neurons by MicroRNAs

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Initiating Events in Direct Cardiomyocyte Reprogramming

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Small Molecules Facilitate the Reprogramming of Mouse Fibroblasts into Pancreatic Lineages

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The Path from Skin to Brain: Generation of Functional Neurons from Fibroblasts

Cell fate reprogramming makes possible the generation of new cell types from healthy adult cells to replace those lost or damaged in disease. Additionally, reprogramming patient cells into specific cell types allows for drug screening and the development of new therapeutic tools. Generation of new neurons is of particular interest because of the potential to treat diseases of the nervous system, such as neurodegenerative disorders and spinal cord injuries, with cell replacement therapy. Recent advances in cell fate reprogramming have led to the development of novel methods for the direct conversion of fibroblasts into neurons and neural stem cells. This review will highlight the advantages of these new methods over neuronal induction from embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells, as well as outline the limitations and the potential for future applications.     

Human Hepatocytes with Drug Metabolic Function Induced from Fibroblasts by Lineage Reprogramming

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PIWI Proteins Are Dispensable for Mouse Somatic Development and Reprogramming of Fibroblasts into Pluripotent Stem Cells

PIWI proteins play essential and conserved roles in germline development, including germline stem cell maintenance and meiosis. Because germline regulators such as OCT4, NANOG, and SOX2 are known to be potent factors that reprogram differentiated somatic cells into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), we investigated whether the PIWI protein family is involved in iPSC production. We find that all three mouse Piwi genes, Miwi, Mili, and Miwi2, are expressed in embryonic stem cells (ESCs) at higher levels than in fibroblasts, with Mili being the highest. However, mice lacking all three Piwi genes are viable and female fertile, and are only male sterile. Furthermore, embryonic fibroblasts derived from Miwi/Mili/Miwi2 triple knockout embryos can be efficiently reprogrammed into iPS cells. These iPS cells expressed pluripotency markers and were capable of differentiating into all three germ layers in teratoma assays. Genome-wide expression profiling reveals that the triple knockout iPS cells are very similar to littermate control iPS cells. These results indicate that PIWI proteins are dispensable for direct reprogramming of mouse fibroblasts.     

SOX2 and SOX2-MYC Reprogramming Process of Fibroblasts to the Neural Stem Cells Compromised by Senescence

Tumorigenic potential of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) infiltrating population of induced neural stem cells (iNSCs) generated from iPSCs may limit their medical applications. To overcome such a difficulty, direct reprogramming of adult somatic cells into iNSCs was proposed. The aim of this study was the systematic comparison of induced neural cells (iNc) obtained with different methods—direct reprogramming of human adult fibroblasts with either SOX2 (SiNSc-like) or SOX2 and c-MYC (SMiNSc-like) and induced pluripotent stem cells differentiation to ebiNSc—in terms of gene expression profile, differentiation potential as well as proliferation properties. Immunocytochemistry and real-time PCR analyses were used to evaluate gene expression profile and differentiation potential of various iNc types. Bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU) incorporation and senescence-associated beta-galactosidase (SA-β-gal) assays were used to estimate proliferation potential. All three types of iNc were capable of neuronal differentiation; however, astrocytic differentiation was possible only in case of ebiNSc. Contrary to ebiNSc generation, the direct reprogramming was rarely a propitious process, despite 100% transduction efficiency. The potency of direct iNSCs-like cells generation was lower as compared to iNSCs obtained by iPSCs differentiation, and only slightly improved when c-MYC was added. Directly reprogrammed iNSCs-like cells were lacking the ability to differentiate into astrocytic cells and characterized by poor efficiency of neuronal cells formation. Such features indicated that these cells could not be fully reprogrammed, as confirmed mainly with senescence detection. Importantly, SiNSc-like and SMiNSc-like cells were unable to achieve the long-term survival and became senescent, which limits their possible therapeutic applicability. Our results suggest that iNSCs-like cells, generated in the direct reprogramming attempts, were either not fully reprogrammed or reprogrammed only into neuronal progenitors, mainly because of the inaccuracies of currently available protocols.