Safeguarding nonhuman primate iPS cells with suicide genes.

Publication Type:

Journal Article

Authors:

Zhong, Bonan; Watts, Korashon L; Gori, Jennifer L; Wohlfahrt, Martin E; Enssle, Joerg; Adair, Jennifer E; Kiem, Hans-Peter

Source:

Molecular therapy : the journal of the American Society of Gene Therapy, Volume 19, Issue 9, p.1667-75 (2011)

Keywords:

2011, Animals, Blotting, Southern, Cell Differentiation, Cell Line, Cell Proliferation, Center-Authored Paper, Clinical Research Division, Cloning, Molecular, Comparative Medicine Core Facility, Experimental Histopathology Core Facility, Flow Cytometry Core Facility, Gene Expression Regulation, Genes, Transgenic, Suicide, Genetic Vectors, Green Fluorescent Proteins, Humans, Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells, Lentivirus, Macaca, MICE, Mice, Inbred NOD, Mice, SCID, Models, Animal, Mutagenesis, Insertional, Regenerative Medicine, Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction, Sequence Analysis, DNA, Shared Resources, Teratoma

Abstract:

The development of technology to generate induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells constitutes one of the most exciting scientific breakthroughs because of the enormous potential for regenerative medicine. However, the safety of iPS cell-related products is a major concern for clinical translation. Insertional mutagenesis, possible oncogenic transformation of iPS cells or their derivatives, or the contamination of differentiated iPS cells with undifferentiated cells, resulting in the formation of teratomas, have remained considerable obstacles. Here, we demonstrate the utility of suicide genes to safeguard iPS cells and their derivatives. We found suicide genes can control the cell fate of iPS cells in vitro and in vivo without interfering with their pluripotency and self-renewal capacity. This study will be useful to evaluate the safety of iPS cell technology in a clinically highly relevant, large animal model and further benefit the clinical use of human iPS cells.