Yamanaka's pioneering work demonstrating the ability of fully differentiated cells to reprogram into embryonic stem cells with just four factors (c-Myc, Oct3/4, Sox2, and Klf4) ushered in a new era of regenerative biology. Although it is currently thought that reprogramming of differentiated cells to a pluripotent state involves multiple stochastic epi-genetic events, progenitors with some degree of uni- or multipotency can be reprogrammed more easily with fewer factors.2Mouse neural stem cells can be reprogrammed to a pluripotent state with the addition of only one factor, Oct4. The endogenous expression of Sox2, Klf-4, and c-Myc, as well as other intermediate reprogramming genes, by endogenous neural stem cells perhaps enables Oct4 to drive these cells to a pluripotent state.
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