Induction of Pluripotent Stem Cells from Mouse Embryonic and Adult Fibroblast Cultures by Defined Factors
Takahashi and Yamanaka demonstrated that pluripotent stem cells can be generated directly from mouse fibroblast cultures by introducing a defined set of transcription factors. Screening candidate genes associated with pluripotency, they identified four factors—Oct3/4, Sox2, c-Myc, and Klf4—that were sufficient to reprogram both embryonic and adult fibroblasts into cells they termed induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. These iPS cells resembled embryonic stem cells in morphology, growth, and marker expression and could form teratomas containing tissues of all three germ layers.