Ectopic expression of key reprogramming transgenes in somatic cells enables them to adopt the characteristics of pluripotency. Such cells have been termed induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells and have revolutionized the field of somatic cell reprogramming, as the need for embryonic material is obviated. One of the issues facing both the clinical translation of iPS cell technology and the efficient derivation of iPS cell lines in the research laboratory is choosing the most appropriate somatic cell type for induction. In this study, we demonstrate the direct reprogramming of a defined population of neural stem cells (NSCs) derived from the subventricular zone (SVZ) and adipose tissue-derived cells (ADCs) from adult mice using retroviral transduction of the Yamanaka factors Oct4, Sox2, Klf4, and c-Myc, and compared the results obtained with a mouse embryonic fibroblast (mEF) control. We isolated mEFs, NSCs, and ADCs from transgenic mice, which possess a GFP transgene under control of the Oct4 promoter, and validated GFP expression as an indicator of reprogramming. While transduction efficiencies were not significantly different among the different cell types (mEFs 68.70 ± 2.62%, ADCs 70.61 ± 15.4%, NSCs, 68.72 ± 3%, p = 0.97), the number of GFP-positive colonies and hence the number of reprogramming events was significantly higher for both NSCs (13.50 ± 4.10 colonies, 0.13 ± 0.06%) and ADCs (118.20 ± 38.28 colonies, 1.14 ± 0.77%) when compared with the mEF control (3.17 ± 0.29 colonies, 0.03 ± 0.005%). ADCs were most amenable to reprogramming with an 8-and 38-fold greater reprogramming efficiency than NSCs and mEFs, respectively. Both NSC iPS and ADC iPS cells were demonstrated to express markers of pluripotency and could differentiate to the three germ layers, both in vitro and in vivo, to cells representative of the three germ lineages. Our findings confirm that ADCs are an ideal candidate as a readily accessible somatic cell type for high efficiency establishment of iPS cell lines.Key words: Induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells; Reprogramming; Adipose-derived cells; Neural stem cells
INTRODUCTIONproach, ethical and logistical concerns have largely diminished their utility [reviewed in Hochedlinger and Jaenisch (11)]. Pluripotency describes the ability of a cell to differentiate into cells of the three germ lineages. This property In 2006, the pioneering work of Takahashi and Yamanaka showed that it was possible to directly reprois usually restricted to a few cell types, including cells of the inner cell mass of a preimplanted blastocyst and gram mouse adult fibroblasts into pluripotent-like cells, without the use of embryonic material (36). The cells their in vitro counterparts, ES cells. While somatic cells have a restricted ability to differentiate during normal were termed induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells and were generated by the retroviral transduction of four development, under certain experimental conditions they can be induced to revert to a pluripotent state. This protranscription factors: Oct4, So...