Induced pluripotent cancer cells: progress and application.

Induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells are a group of pluripotent stem cells artificially derived from non-pluripotent cells typically by a forced expression of specific transcription factors. Generation of cancer-specific iPS cells, also called induced pluripotent cancer (iPC) cells, provides valuable experimental platform to model oncogenesis and holds great potential in the fields of drug screening. However, iPC cells are harder to achieve than normal iPS cells probably because of the special genetic and epigenetic states of cancer cells. To help overcome this hurdle of iPC research and to prospect this promising field, this review emphasizes the experimental issues of reprogramming cancer into iPC cells, and discusses the potential of iPC cells in cancer research.