Hassan Law (gunpaper5)

The pluripotency of human induced pluripotent stem cells (HiPSCs) cannot be tested strictly in a similar way as we can do for the mouse ones because of ethical restrictions. One common and initial approach to prove the pluripotency of an established human iPSC line is to demonstrate expression of a set of established surface and intracellular pluripotency markers. This chapter provides procedures of immunocytochemistry of the established HiPSC lines for a set of the signature intracellular pluripotency proteins, OCT4, SOX2, NANOG, and LIN28. We also describe cell phenotyping by flow cytometry for the five established human pluripotency surface markers, SSEA3, SSEA4, TRA-1-60, TRA-1-81, and TRA2-49 (ALP). Numbers of ALP+ and TRA-1-60+ colonies are the most widely used parameters for evaluation of human iPSC reprogramming efficiency. Therefore, this chapter also provides detailed steps for substrate colorimetric reaction of the ALP activity, as well as the TRA-1-60 staining, of the iPSC colonies in the reprogramming population.Mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) can be used in co-culture to support generation of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and the normal growth and proliferation of human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs). Here, we describe the necessary steps to derive, expand, harvest, inactivate, plate, and use MEFs as feeders for iPSC generation and maintenance.The development of porcine expanded potential stem cells (pEPSCs) provides an invaluable tool for investigation of porcine stem cell pluripotency and opens a venue for research in biotechnology, agriculture, and regenerative medicine. Since the derivation of pEPSC from porcine pre-implantation embryos has been demanding in resource supply and technical challenges, it is more feasible and convenient for most laboratories to derive this new type of porcine stem cells by reprogramming somatic cells. In this chapter, we describe the detailed procedures for reprogramming porcine fetal fibroblast cells to EPSCiPSC with the eight reprogramming factors cloned on the piggyBac vectors followed by a selection for pluripotent cells independent of transgene expression using the EPSC media. This technique allows the generation of pEPSCs for stem cell research, genome editing, biotechnology, and agriculture.CRISPR-mediated gene activation (CRISPRa) can be used to target endogenous genes for activation. By targeting pluripotency-associated reprogramming factors, human fibroblasts can be reprogrammed into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). Inflammation agonist Here, we describe a method for the derivation of iPSCs from human fibroblasts using episomal plasmids encoding CRISPRa components. This chapter also provides procedure to assemble guide RNA cassettes and generation of multiplexed guide plasmids for readers who want to design their own guide RNAs.Human-induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are showing great promise for both disease modeling and regenerative medicine. The choice of reprogramming methods have a significant effect on the outcomes of the experiments. Standard methods, such as Sendai viruses, episomes, and the base-modified mRNA have limitations. Here, I describe a method to reprogram human fibroblasts using a cocktail of mRNAs without any base modification that increases reprogramming efficiency, reduces the RNA-associated toxicity, and yields iPSCs ready for expansion and characterization in as short as 10-14 days.The discovery of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) allows for establishment of human embryonic stem-like cells from various adult human somatic cells (e.g., fibroblasts), without the need for destruction of human embryos. This provides an unprecedented opportunity where patient-specific iPSCs can be subsequently differentiated to many cell types, e.g., cardiac cells and neurons, so that we can use these iPSC-derived cells to study patient-specific disease mechanisms and conduct drug testing and screening. Critically, these cells have u