Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, Faculty of Human Life Sciences, Fuji Women's University Ishikarishi, Japan.
Front Pharmacol. 2013 Jul 3;4:85. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2013.00085. eCollection 2013.
Pluripotent stem cells, i.e., embryonic stem (ES) and induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, can indefinitely proliferate without commitment and differentiate into all cell lineages. ES cells are derived from the inner cell mass of the preimplantation blastocyst, whereas iPS cells are generated from somatic cells by overexpression of a few transcription factors. Many studies have demonstrated that mouse and human iPS cells are highly similar but not identical to their respective ES cell counterparts. The potential to generate basically any differentiated cell types from these cells offers the possibility to establish new models of mammalian development and to create new sources of cells for regenerative medicine. ES cells and iPS cells also provide useful models to study connexin expression and gap-junctional intercellular communication (GJIC) during cell differentiation and reprogramming. In 1996, we reported connexin expression and GJIC in mouse ES cells. Because a substantial number of papers on these subjects have been published since our report, this Mini Review summarizes currently available data on connexin expression and GJIC in ES cells and iPS cells during undifferentiated state, differentiation, and reprogramming.
多能干细胞，即胚胎干细胞（ES）和诱导多能干细胞（iPS），可以无限增殖而不分化，并分化为所有细胞谱系。ES 细胞来源于植入前囊胚的内细胞团，而 iPS 细胞则通过过表达少数几个转录因子从体细胞中产生。许多研究表明，小鼠和人类的 iPS 细胞与各自的 ES 细胞非常相似，但不完全相同。这些细胞有可能从这些细胞中产生基本上任何分化的细胞类型，为建立新的哺乳动物发育模型和为再生医学创造新的细胞来源提供了可能性。ES 细胞和 iPS 细胞还为研究连接蛋白表达和缝隙连接细胞间通讯（GJIC）在细胞分化和重编程过程中提供了有用的模型。1996 年，我们报告了小鼠 ES 细胞中的连接蛋白表达和 GJIC。由于自我们的报告以来已经发表了大量关于这些主题的论文，因此本综述总结了目前关于 ES 细胞和 iPS 细胞在未分化状态、分化和重编程过程中连接蛋白表达和 GJIC 的可用数据。
