CDK8/19 inhibition plays an important role in pancreatic β-cell induction from human iPSCs

In this study, we demonstrate that we can obtain human iPSC-derived pancreatic islet-like cells (iPICs) with comparable transcriptomic profile by using a combination of an ALK5 inhibitor and a CDK8/19 inhibitor, instead of utilizing ALK5 inhibitor II. The iPICs were generated from the human iPSC line Ff-I14-s04 based on our previous report (Hiyoshi et al., Scientific Reports 2022). The ALK5 inhibitor II in the protocol was replaced with an ALK5 inhibitor, a CDK8/19 inhibitor and their combinations.