iPS→One-factor human NiPS：ついにOCT4単独で・・

Natureの28 August 2009

Direct reprogramming of human neural stem cells by OCT4
near-final version

OCT4一遺伝子だけでiPSができますよ・・という論文。ソースは神経幹細胞である。

Jeong Beom Kim, Boris Greber, Marcos J. Araúzo-Bravo, Johann Meyer, Kook In Park, Holm Zaehres & Hans R. Schöler

1. Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine, Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, Röntgenstrasse 20, 48149 Münster, NRW, Germany
2. Hannover Medical School, Department of Experimental Hematology, Carl-Neuberg-Strasse 1, 30625 Hannover, Germany
3. Department of Pediatrics, BK21 Project for Medical Sciences, Yonsei University College of Medicine, 250 Seongsanno, Seodaemoon-gu, Seoul 120-752, Korea

Induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells have been generated from mouse and human somatic cells by ectopic expression of four transcription factors (OCT4 (also called POU5F1), SOX2, c-Myc and KLF4)^{1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7}. We previously reported that Oct4 alone is sufficient to reprogram directly adult mouse neural stem cells to iPS cells⁸. Here we report the generation of one-factor human iPS cells from human fetal neural stem cells (one-factor (1F) human NiPS cells) by ectopic expression of OCT4 alone. One-factor human NiPS cells resemble human embryonic stem cells in global gene expression profiles, epigenetic status, as well as pluripotency in vitro and in vivo. These findings demonstrate that the transcription factor OCT4 is sufficient to reprogram human neural stem cells to pluripotency. One-factor iPS cell generation will advance the field further towards understanding reprogramming and generating patient-specific pluripotent stem cells.

昨日山中さんのところから培養温度を4〜5度にするとiPS化が促進されるという論文がCell Stem Cellに掲載されたという報道があったようだ（テレビでもやっていた）。これも面白い・・・というかp53以外の促進因子を探せよ！と思っていた矢先であり、さすがだと思いました。