Continuing Successes with iPS Cell Research 2009/7/14 Research on induced pluripotent stem cells has continued to progress since November 2007, when the research group of Professor Shin’ya Yamanaka of Kyoto University and a team at the University of Wisconsin in the United States simultaneously announced success in creating human iPS cells.

Other research that may be applied in treatment is also progressing, including efforts to create iPS cells from sick patients themselves. In January Okano of Keio University announced the creation of iPS cells from the skin of Parkinson’s disease patients. The aim is to get iPS cells to differentiate into nerve cells that produce dopamine, a neurotransmitter that is lacking in Parkinson’s patients. Eventually, this could lead to a treatment for the disease.

Yamanaka has teamed up with Professor Tatsutoshi Nakahata, a colleague at Kyoto University, to successfully make iPS cells from patients with congenital muscular dystrophy and autoimmune disease. A group at Gifu University has successfully created iPS cells using extracted wisdom teeth, while a Keio University team has done the same using fetal neural stem cells.

Viruses and four genes have normally been used in making human iPS cells, but there have recently been successes in making such cells without them. The use of viruses and genes is problematic in that iPS cells made with them have a fairly high incidence of becoming cancerous. Much attention has been focused on overcoming this serious issue.

Dr. Keisuke Kaji of the University of Edinburgh, together with a team from the University of Toronto, announced in March the creation of iPS cells without the use of viruses. After the iPS cells had been made, the genes used in making them were also removed. In April a team at the Scripps Research Institute succeeded in making iPS cells without inserting genes in an experiment using mice. There have been no reports of human iPS cells being made without the use of viruses or genes in Japan as of April 2009.

A joint Japanese-US-European research team is currently working to analyze genes that play roles in the differentiation of human cells into various types of cells. The team announced in the April online issue of the journal Nature Genetics that the roles of 30 types of genes were identified. RIKEN participated in this study from Japan. (Koji Fujiyoshi)

Related Website
- Center for iPS Cell Research and Application, iCeMS, Kyoto University