Expression data of human somatic cell types and induced pluripotent stem cells

Transcription factor-mediated reprogramming yields induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) by erasing tissue specific methylation and re-setting DNA methylation status to an embryonic stage. We compared bona fide human iPSC derived from umbilical cord blood (CB) and neonatal keratinocytes (K). Through both incomplete erasure of tissue specific methylation and de novo tissue specific methylation, CB-iPSC and K-iPSC are distinct in genome-wide DNA methylation profiles. Functionally, CB-iPSC displayed better blood formation in vitro, whereas K-iPSC differentiated better to a keratinocyte fate, implying that the tissue of origin needs to be considered in future therapeutic applications of human iPSCs. We performed gene expression and global DNA methylation profiling on iPS and the source somatic cell types to search for evidence of epigenetic memory. We performed gene expression profiling to identify genes differentially expressed between keratinocytes and cord blood, and from induced pluripotent stem cells from these somatic tissues.