Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs)—a new era of reprogramming

Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) derived from the early embryos possess two important characteristics: self-renewal and pluripotency, which make ESCs ideal seed cells that could be potentially utilized for curing a number of degenerative and genetic diseases clinically. However, ethical concerns and immune rejection after cell transplantation limited the clinical application of ESCs. Fortunately, the recent advances in induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) research have clearly shown that differentiated somatic cells from various species could be reprogrammed into pluripotent state by ectopically expressing a combination of several transcription factors, which are highly enriched in ESCs. This ground-breaking achievement could circumvent most of the limitations that ESCs faced. However, it remains challenging if the iPS cell lines, especially the human iPSCs lines, available are fully pluripotent. Therefore, it is prerequisite to establish a molecular standard to distinguish the better quality iPSCs from the inferior ones.