Kanawaty Ashlin, Henderson Jeffrey
Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
Bioessays. 2009 Feb;31(2):134-8. doi: 10.1002/bies.200800204.
The phenomenal proliferation of scientific studies into the nature of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells following publication of the findings of Takahashi and Yamanaka little more than 2 years ago, have significantly expanded our understanding of cellular mechanisms relating to cell lineage, differentiation, and proliferation. While the full potential of iPS cell lineages for both scientific tool and therapeutic applications is as yet unclear, findings from several lines of investigation suggests that multipotential and terminally differentiated cells from an array of cell types are competent to undergo epigenetic reprogramming to a pluripotential state. The nature of this pluripotential state appears to be similar to, but not identical with that previously described for embryonic stem (ES) cells. Understanding the nature of this induced reprogrammed state will be critical to determining the full potential of iPS cells. Recently, this issue has been examined through an integrated analysis of the genome in fully and partially reprogrammed iPS cell lineages. These results provide a window onto the temporal components of reprogramming and suggest mechanisms by which the efficacy of reprogramming can be enhanced.
两年多前高桥和山中伸弥公布诱导多能干细胞（iPS细胞）的研究结果后，科学界对iPS细胞性质的研究如雨后春笋般激增，极大地拓展了我们对细胞谱系、分化和增殖相关细胞机制的理解。虽然iPS细胞系在科学工具和治疗应用方面的全部潜力尚不明朗，但多项研究结果表明，来自一系列细胞类型的多能和终末分化细胞能够经历表观遗传重编程，转变为多能状态。这种多能状态的性质似乎与先前描述的胚胎干细胞（ES细胞）相似，但并不完全相同。了解这种诱导重编程状态的性质对于确定iPS细胞的全部潜力至关重要。最近，通过对完全和部分重编程的iPS细胞系进行基因组综合分析，对这一问题进行了研究。这些结果为了解重编程的时间组成部分提供了一个窗口，并提出了提高重编程效率的机制。
