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A new route to human embryonic stem cells

Nature Medicine volume 19, pages 820–821 (2013)Cite this article

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Alan Trounson

Fertilization is a remarkable reprogramming event involving the sperm and oocyte. It is also interesting that lineage-committed adult somatic cell types can be efficiently and rapidly reprogrammed in amphibians and mammals by SCNT. Despite a lack of optimism and considerable opposition to human 'therapeutic cloning' (via SCNT) by various groups, Tachibana et al.1 have recently shown that human SCNT efficiently results in the production of euploid embryonic stem cells (SCNT-ESCs). Is SCNT made redundant by the availability of transcription factor–transduced induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs)2, or will it challenge iPSCs as an optional method for reprogramming adult cells? First, further generation of SCNT-ESCs is needed to evaluate their relative differences from iPSCs using carefully constructed experiments and to analyze their robustness for producing differentiated and histocompatible transplant products for cell therapy, their relative genetic stability and freedom from epigenetic memory, and their accuracy as human disease models for the discovery of new drugs. Second, SCNT uniquely enables the production of cells for therapy for patients with inheritable mitochondrial diseases because the mutated somatic mitochondrial DNA is replaced by the mitochondria from the reprogramming oocyte.

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A new route to human embryonic stem cells. Nat Med 19, 820–821 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm.3266

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