“Comparative Analysis of Targeted Differentiation of Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (hiPSCs) and Human Embryonic Stem Cells Reveals Variability Associated With Incomplete Transgene Silencing in Retrovirally Derived hiPSC Lines”
From Stem Cells Translational Medicine
Multiple studies have been published on the comparison of human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) to analyse whether iPSCs are a suitable replacement for hESCs in a therapeutic context. However, many of these studies have focused on the undifferentiated phenotype, non-directed differentiation (embryoid bodies or teratomas), or their differentiation toward a single specific lineage (Boulting et al, Hu et al, Osafune et al and Zhang et al). However now, in a study from the laboratory of Timo Otonkoski from the University of Helsinki, Finland, published in Stem Cells Translational Medicine, researchers have taken advantage of protocols optimized for endoderm, mesoderm, and ectoderm differentiation, to make a mass comparison of differentiation efficiency. Interestingly, no systematic differences were observed, with the main difference arising in one cell line with incomplete transgene silencing (Toivonen, Ojala and Hyysalo et al).