Adipose-derived Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells

Inventors: Shigeki Sugii, Juan Carlos Izpisúa Belmonte, and Ronald Evans
Potential Uses: Drug Discovery, Gene Expression, Research Tool, Stem Cells

Adipose tissue is a good source of proliferating, multipotent stem cells. However, even in industrialized countries where liposuction procedures are common enough that adipose tissue is a virtually unlimited resource, its potential for use in regenerative medicine has not been extensively explored. The self-renewal and multipotent properties of adipose-derived progenitor and stem cells would make them ideal candidates for the generation of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells by transduction with four standard reprogramming factors: cMyc, Klf4, Oct4 and Sox2.

Generally, in order to maintain proliferation and self-renewal under a pluripotent state, co-culture of iPS cells with feeder cells is required, which can potentially complicate therapeutic applications. Contamination with feeder cells, animal products and xenobiotics remains a serious concern for maintaining functional integrity of both ES and iPS cells. Based on our research, it is possible to minimize exposure to animal products by deriving feeder-independent human iPS cells in a defined medium that consists of recombinant protein sources and purified human material. Our invention, which describes the production of iPS cell both from human and mouse adipose-derived cells, offers an attractive model system for studying the molecular mechanisms of iPS generation and maintenance of self-renewal.