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Watching reprogramming in real time

Nature Biotechnology volume 27, pages 997–998 (2009)Cite this article

As a differentiated cell proceeds toward the pluripotent state, markers turn on and off in an orderly fashion.

What happens inside a cell that is being reprogrammed into an induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell? Investigating this question is especially difficult in the human system, where it is unclear how to prospectively identify the rare cells that are on the correct path to pluripotency or even cells that are fully reprogrammed. On page 1033, Chan et al.1 begin to tackle the question by carefully characterizing in real time several markers that are silenced and activated during the dedifferentiation of human fibroblasts to iPS cells. They find a combination of cell-surface markers and cell-growth characteristics that can be used to predict fully reprogrammed iPS cells.

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Figure 1: Live cell staining and imaging to follow the generation of iPS cells in real time.

Kim Caesar

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. and Department of Urology, Deepa Subramanyam and Robert Blelloch are at The Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research, Center for Reproductive Sciences, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA.,

    Deepa Subramanyam & Robert Blelloch

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  1. Deepa Subramanyam
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  2. Robert Blelloch
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Correspondence to Robert Blelloch.

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Subramanyam, D., Blelloch, R. Watching reprogramming in real time. Nat Biotechnol 27, 997–998 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt1109-997

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