Working Out the Various Factors in iPS Cell Generation

摘要

The excitement generated by the announcement, in November 2007, that adult human cells could be reprogrammed into stem cells, capable of differentiating into any type of cell, shows no signs of dying down. The original paper, from Shinya Yamanaka's group at Kyoto University in Japan, maintains its vice-like hold on the #1 spot despite a fundamental problem with these induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells: one of the four triggers necessary to rejuvenate an adult cell is a retrovirus called Myc, and re-activating the c-Myc retrovirus gene unfortunately increases the likelihood of tumors developing among the descendants of iPS cells. A follow-up paper from essentially the same group, which addresses that fundamental difficulty in the original paper, has now arrived at #7.