Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Lines Derived from Human Somatic Cells

Human fibroblast-derived, pluripotent cell lines are described that have normal karyotypes, express high levels of telomerase activity, and express both cell surface markers and genes that characterize human embryonic stem (ES) cells. Keywords: Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Lines Derived from Human Somatic Cells After prolonged undifferentiated proliferation, these fibroblast-derived cells maintain the developmental potential to differentiate into derivatives of all three primary germ layers in both embryoid bodies and teratomas. These pluripotent cell lines were derived by the transduction of Oct4, Sox2, Nanog, and Lin28 into genetically unmodified, diploid human fibroblasts. Such human induced pluripotent cell lines should have broad applications in both the development of in vitro models of human disease and transplantation medicine.