Gene silencing may be responsible for induced pluripotent stem cells' limitations
Monday, April 26, 2010 - 02:00
in Health & Medicine
Scientists may be one step closer to being able to generate any type of cells and tissues from a patient's own cells. In a study that will appear in the journal Nature and is receiving early online release, investigators from the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Regenerative Medicine (MGH-CRM) and the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI), describe finding that an important cluster of genes is inactivated in induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) that do not have the full development potential of embryonic stem cells. Generated from adult cells, iPSCs have many characteristics of embryonic stem cells but also have had significant limitations.