Tumors Originating from Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells and Methods for Their Prevention

Abstract

Pluripotent stem cells represent an almost unlimited source of most somatic cell types, providing them with great potential for cell-based therapies. The earliest methods used for generating human pluripotent stem cells as embryonic stem cells from human embryos suffered from ethical and technical drawbacks. These problems have been solved in part through the efficient induction of pluripotency in somatic cells using forced expression of a tetrad of factors. Here, we describe the formation of rhabdomyosarcomas originating from factor-induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells derived from mouse neural stem cells. This underscores the commonly accepted notion that the use of retroviral delivery methods for inducing pluripotency will not be suited for clinical applications. However, the iPS cell field is developing rapidly. Safer protocols are now available for producing pluripotent stem cells. Here the current state-of-the-art in this field will be discussed.

Reprogrammed Cell?based Therapy for Liver Disease: From Lab to Clinic

“…Klf4 and c-Myc are also associated with breast cancer and some other human carcinomas (70). Tumor progression is also observed in murine chimeras after injection of retroviral-generated iPSCs to blastocysts which has been attributed to c-Myc overexpression (71,72).…”

Induced pluripotent stem cells and severe combined immunodeficiency: merely disease modeling or potentially a novel cure?

“…Because most of the pluripotency genes have been associated with tumorigenesis, incomplete silencing or reactivation of the inserted proviruses can cause tumors (49)(50)(51)(52). As a consequence, iPSCs used for in vivo disease modeling should preferentially be generated by different methods, and when future therapeutic applications are considered, nonintegrating delivery systems are required.…”

Induced pluripotent stem cells: the long-expected revolution in medical science and practice?

“…Furthermore, patient-specific iPS cells offer the opportunity for drug screening and discovery and could be used in cell transplantation therapies using HLA-matched or autologous cells. 52 Besides, it is superfluous to mention that use of iPS cells would avoid the ethically sensible topic of using human embryos or eggs. A further and less explored potential application of iPS cells is their use as a cancer vaccine.…”