Inducible iPS Cells Support Full-term Development of Tetraploid Blastocyst–Complemented Embryos

Differentiated somatic cells can be reprogrammed into induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells by forced expression of four transcription factors—Oct4, Sox2, Klf4, and c-Myc. However, it remains undetermined whether the reprogrammed iPS cells are fully pluripotent, resembling normal embryonic stem (ES) cells, given that no iPS cell lines have been shown to possess the capability to autonomously generate full-term mice after injection into tetraploid blastocysts. Here, we provide evidence demonstrating that iPS cells induced by the four transcription factors can be fully pluripotent and that full-term mice can be produced from complemented tetraploid blastocysts. This work serves as a proof of principle that iPS cells can generate full term embryos by tetraploid complementation. We compared the gene expression profile of iPS cell, ES cell and MEF. ES cell and MEF served as control for iPS cell. Three biological repeats were included for each line.