Stempeutics Research Malaysia Sdn. Bhd, Lot 3-I-7, Enterprise 4, Technology Park Malaysia, Bukit Jalil, 57000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
J Tissue Eng Regen Med. 2010 Aug;4(6):413-21. doi: 10.1002/term.258.
Pluripotent stem cells possess the unique property of differentiating into all other cell types of the human body. Further, the discovery of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) in 2006 has opened up new avenues in clinical medicine. In simple language, iPSCs are nothing but somatic cells reprogrammed genetically to exhibit pluripotent characteristics. This process utilizes retroviruses/lentiviruses/adenovirus/plasmids to incorporate candidate genes into somatic cells isolated from any part of the human body. It is also possible to develop disease-specific iPSCs which are most likely to revolutionize research in respect to the pathophysiology of most debilitating diseases, as these can be mimicked ex vivo in the laboratory. These models can also be used to study the safety and efficacy of known drugs or potential drug candidates for a particular diseased condition, limiting the need for animal studies and considerably reducing the time and money required to develop new drugs. Recently, functional neurons, cardiomyocytes, pancreatic islet cells, hepatocytes and retinal cells have been derived from human iPSCs, thus re-confirming the pluripotency and differentiation capacity of these cells. These findings further open up the possibility of using iPSCs in cell replacement therapy for various degenerative disorders. In this review we highlight the development of iPSCs by different methods, their biological characteristics and their prospective applications in regenerative medicine and drug screening. We further discuss some practical limitations pertaining to this technology and how they can be averted for the betterment of human life.
多能干细胞具有分化为人体所有其他细胞类型的独特特性。此外，2006 年诱导多能干细胞（iPSC）的发现为临床医学开辟了新途径。简单地说，iPSC 只不过是经过基因重编程表现出多能特性的体细胞。该过程利用逆转录病毒/慢病毒/腺病毒/质粒将候选基因整合到从人体任何部位分离的体细胞中。也有可能开发出针对特定疾病的 iPSC，这很可能会彻底改变对大多数使人衰弱疾病的病理生理学的研究，因为这些疾病可以在实验室中体外模拟。这些模型还可用于研究针对特定疾病状况的已知药物或潜在药物候选物的安全性和有效性，从而减少对动物研究的需求，并大大缩短开发新药所需的时间和资金。最近，已经从人 iPSC 中衍生出功能性神经元、心肌细胞、胰岛细胞、肝细胞和视网膜细胞，从而再次证实了这些细胞的多能性和分化能力。这些发现进一步开辟了使用 iPSC 进行各种退行性疾病细胞替代治疗的可能性。在这篇综述中，我们强调了不同方法的 iPSC 的发展、它们的生物学特性以及它们在再生医学和药物筛选中的潜在应用。我们进一步讨论了与这项技术相关的一些实际限制以及如何为了人类生活的改善而避免这些限制。
