Establishment and characterization of human embryonic stem cell lines, Turkey perspectives

Abstract

Human embryonic stem cells (hESC), which are derived from the inner cell mass (ICM) of blastocyst stage embryos, are of great importance because of their unpredictable two unique features: their differentiation ability into all types of cells derived from three germ layers and their potentially unlimited capacity of self renewing with stable karyotype. These distinguished properties make hESC very promising cell source for regenerative medicine, tissue replacement therapies, and drug screening studies as well as genomics. However, due to the several technical problems, such as risk of teratoma formation, immune response, and unknown genetic pathways for lineage specific differentiation, and ethical drawbacks of their using in clinical treatments, hESC researches are still waiting to advance beyond to animal trials and drug studies. During the last decade, more than 300 new hESC lines have been derived and published by researchers worldwide. However, despite their similar well-known unique properties, recent studies reported that hESC lines have very individual properties and are differed from each other with regards to their differentiation ability and gene expression profiles. Therefore, all hESC lines should be characterized in detail and then registered in a stem cell bank for generating global database. In this report, the characteristic of hESC lines, which were established in Istanbul Memorial Hospital between 2003 and 2005, and derivation methods were described in detail to inform researchers and to facilitate new prospective cooperative studies.

Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research: A Comparison Between Turkey and Iran

“…We agree on the first opinion, because from our point of view, it fits the logic of the law, and reflects the meanings of the circulars. Indeed, in practice, there has been no embryonic stem cell research since the circular dated 2005 was issued (12)(13)(14).…”

La science des cellules souches embryonnaires humaines en Iran : une expérience pionnière dans le monde musulman

“…However, Islamic approaches play a significant role in defining its people's opinion on controversial issues in the modern world [6]. This country mostly concentrates on adult SC research, although it has been reported in some relevant studies about hESC research [21,22]. Turkey adopted a permissive approach to allowing researchers to work on the existing hESC lines as well as to create embryos via IVF specifically for research purposes (International Society for Stem Cell Research).…”

Co-Culture Techniques in Assisted Reproduction: History, Advances and the Future

“…On the other hand, the concept of cells helping cells has proved to be successful not only in human embryo development but also to derive human embryonic stem cell lines, and better results are obtained when feeder cells are used to support human embryonic stem cells ( Figure 5) (Candan and Kahraman, 2010). …”