The research team made a major breakthrough in the induced pluripotent stem cell technology published in "Nature" today!

Today, the top academic journal "Nature" launched a blockbuster study from a Chinese research team

In 2012, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to two scientists, Professor Shinya Yamanaka and Professor John B.

Pluripotent stem cells have the property of unlimited proliferation and can differentiate into all functional cell types of the organism

This time, following "nuclear transfer" and "transcription factor induction", Chinese scientists proposed a new technology for the preparation of induced human pluripotent stem cells: chemical reprogramming

According to Professor Deng Hongkui, this work can be described as the crystallization of "ten years of sharpening a sword"

Since then, the research team and several collaborators have gradually elucidated the unique mechanism of chemical reprogramming, and greatly optimized the system, and finally developed a new way to prepare human pluripotent stem cells

▲The development of a new generation of induced pluripotent stem cell technology (Image source: provided by the author of the study)

Compared with traditional methods, the advantages of chemical small molecules include simple operation, strong temporal and spatial control, reversible effects, and highly controllable cellular reprogramming process

However, chemical reprogramming to induce human pluripotent stem cells still has many challenges

Amphibians such as salamanders have a magical regeneration of amputated limbs.

Following this line of thought, the research team has screened and combined a large number of small chemical molecules, and finally found that highly differentiated human adult cells can undergo a phenomenon similar to dedifferentiation under the action of a specific combination of small chemical molecules, and obtain a certain degree of plasticity.

▲By creating a plastic intermediate state, the chemical reprogramming of human cells is achieved to induce human CiPS cells (Image source: Reference [1])

This study further describes the unique molecular mechanism by which chemical reprogramming induces human CiPS cells

"This regenerative intermediate state provides a new idea for studying the reactivation of regenerative genes in human cells, and suggests that it is expected to promote the application of chemical reprogramming in the direction of tissue and organ regeneration, and provide a new possible way for regenerative medicine research

▲Chemical reprogramming activates the molecular mechanism of regeneration-related networks (Image credit: provided by the study authors)

In recent years, the establishment of induced pluripotent stem cell technology has produced a wide range of application values ​​in the fields of cell therapy, drug screening and disease modeling, especially the construction of autologous specific stem cell lines for patients, which has greatly accelerated the clinical application of stem cells

Professor Deng Hongkui commented that now we have an original new generation of human pluripotent stem cell preparation technology, which not only helps to better understand the mechanism of cell fate determination and transformation, but also brings new possibilities for future regenerative medicine to treat major diseases

▲Human CiPS technology has broad application prospects in the field of biomedicine (Image source: provided by the author of the study)

Note: The original text has been deleted

References:

[1] Jingyang Guan et al.