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The mysteries of induced pluripotency: where will they lead?

Nature Methods volume 7, pages 22–24 (2010)Cite this article

The discovery that it is possible to render somatic cells pluripotent by the exogenous expression of a set of transcription factors provides an experimental model for studying the molecular nature of cellular identity.

The reprogramming of somatic cells to pluripotency is an amazing phenomenon that has long been recognized in studies of regeneration. Thomas Morgan, who committed his life to Drosophila genetics, studied regeneration in the flatworm Planaria during his early years, at the turn of the twentieth century. He found that small pieces of Planaria (what he called the “old part”) could completely remodel into a new and properly proportioned organism1. He named this process morphollaxis, since organs and cell types present in one body part actively change into tissues that build up the missing structures. There is little doubt that this process is associated with reprogramming rather than with mobilization of existing stem cells.

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Figure 1: The epigenetic landscape proposed by C.H. Waddington.
Figure 2: 'Secondary' fibroblasts isolated from chimeric embryos made with iPS cells respond efficiently to reprogramming factor induction.
Figure 3: Proposed phases, transition points and cell fates during reprogramming to iPS cells.

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  1. Mount Sinai Hospital and the Department of Molecular Genetics, Andras and Kristina Nagy are at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Andras Nagy & Kristina Nagy

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  1. Andras Nagy
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  2. Kristina Nagy
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Correspondence to Andras Nagy or Kristina Nagy.

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Nagy, A., Nagy, K. The mysteries of induced pluripotency: where will they lead?. Nat Methods 7, 22–24 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.f.292

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