Mammalian genes induce partially reprogrammed pluripotent stem cells in non-mammalian vertebrate and invertebrate species

Abstract

Cells are fundamental units of life, but little is known about evolution of cell states. Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are once differentiated cells that have been re-programmed to an embryonic stem cell-like state, providing a powerful platform for biology and medicine. However, they have been limited to a few mammalian species. Here we found that a set of four mammalian transcription factor genes used to generate iPSCs in mouse and humans can induce a partially reprogrammed pluripotent stem cell (PRPSCs) state in vertebrate and invertebrate model organisms, in mammals, birds, fish, and fly, which span 550 million years from a common ancestor. These findings are one of the first to show cross-lineage stem cell-like induction, and to generate pluripotent-like cells for several of these species with in vivo chimeras. We suggest that the stem-cell state may be highly conserved across a wide phylogenetic range.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.00036.001

Derivation and Characterization of Bovine Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells by Transposon-Mediated Reprogramming

“…iPSCs were first derived from mouse fibroblasts by overexpression of four reprogramming factors-Oct4, Sox2, Klf4, and c-Myc-and subsequently from human fibroblasts by overexpression of OCT4, SOX2, LIN28, and NANOG (Takahashi and Yamanaka, 2006;Yu et al, 2007) after retroviral transfection. Retroviral and lentiviral delivery of core reprogramming factors allowed the derivation of iPSCs from several other mammals, including rat (Liao et al, 2009), dog (Shimada et al, 2010), pig (Esteban et al, 2009), rhesus monkey (Liu et al, 2008), sheep (Bao et al, 2011), goat , horse (Nagy et al, 2011), cattle (Han et al, 2011), buffalo (Deng et al, 2012), and of iPS-like cells from nonmammalian vertebrates (Rossello et al, 2013). iPSCs derived from somatic tissue are particularly promising in farm animals in which true, germline-competent embryonic stem cells (ESCs) could not yet be derived (Kumar et al, 2015).…”

In Vivo Transfection of Naked DNA into Xenopus Tadpole Tail Muscle

“…We showed that Xenopus differentiated skeletal muscle fibers could be reprogrammed to pluripotency after transfecting the Yamanaka factors (mouse Oct4, Sox2 and Klf4). This was the first time that induced reprogramming was reported to be feasible in vivo and that mammalian factors were shown to be able to reprogram nonmammalian cells (Vivien et al 2012); others have confirmed these observations (Abad et al 2013;Rosselló et al 2013). This safe and inexpensive technique has been adapted to fish (Hansen et al 1991) including zebrafish (L. Coen, unpublished data), Xenopus tropicalis (Rowe et al 2002), and used in various species to develop immunization protocols (Donnelly et al 1995;Lewis and Babiuk 1999;Pachuk et al 2000).…”

Nonviral Minicircle Generation of Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells Compatible with Production of Chimeric Chickens

“…A recent report has also demonstrated the development of ciPSCs capable of producing chimeric chickens (Rossello et al, 2013). These cells were developed using viral approaches, yet they still demonstrated limited incorporation in embryonic chicks, even when using low-passage cells.…”