iPS Cells Can Support Full-Term Development of Tetraploid Blastocyst-Complemented Embryos

• Published in: Cell stem cell Vol. 5; no. 2; pp. 135 - 138
• Main Authors: Kang, Lan, Wang, Jianle, Zhang, Yu, Kou, Zhaohui, Gao, Shaorong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge, MA Elsevier Inc 07.08.2009; Cell Press
• Subjects: Animals; Biological and medical sciences; Blastocyst - physiology; Cell differentiation, maturation, development, hematopoiesis; Cell physiology; Cellular Reprogramming - physiology; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Kruppel-Like Transcription Factors - metabolism; Mice; Molecular and cellular biology; Octamer Transcription Factor-3 - metabolism; Pluripotent Stem Cells - physiology; Polyploidy; Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-myc - metabolism; SOXB1 Transcription Factors - metabolism; Transduction, Genetic; Induced pluripotent stem cell; Embryonic development; Embryo; Complement; Blastocyst
• ISSN: 1934-5909; 1875-9777
• DOI: 10.1016/j.stem.2009.07.001

To our knowledge, for the first time, we demonstrate that induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) can autonomously generate full-term mice via tetraploid blastocysts complementation. Differentiated somatic cells can be reprogrammed into iPSCs by forced expression of four transcription factors—Oct4, Sox2, Klf4, and c-Myc. However, it has been unclear whether reprogrammed iPSCs are fully pluripotent, resembling normal embryonic stem cells (ESCs), as no iPSC lines have shown the ability to autonomously generate full-term mice after injection into tetraploid blastocysts. Here we provide evidence demonstrating that an iPSC line induced by the four transcription factors can be used to generate full-term mice from complemented tetraploid blastocysts and thus appears to be fully pluripotent. This work serves as a proof of principle that iPSCs can in fact generate full-term embryos by tetraploid complementation.