title: Establishment of automated culture system for murine induced pluripotent stem cells.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells can differentiate into any cell type, which makes them an attractive resource in fields such as regenerative medicine, drug screening, or in vitro toxicology. The most important prerequisite for these industrial applications is stable supply and uniform quality of iPS cells. Variation in quality largely results from differences in handling skills between operators in laboratories. To minimize these differences, establishment of an automated iPS cell culture system is necessary.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We developed a standardized mouse iPS cell maintenance culture, using an automated cell culture system housed in a CO2 incubator commonly used in many laboratories. The iPS cells propagated in a chamber uniquely designed for automated culture and showed specific colony morphology, as for manual culture. A cell detachment device in the system passaged iPS cells automatically by dispersing colonies to single cells. In addition, iPS cells were passaged without any change in colony morphology or expression of undifferentiated stem cell markers during the 4 weeks of automated culture.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our results show that use of this compact, automated cell culture system facilitates stable iPS cell culture without obvious effects on iPS cell pluripotency or colony-forming ability. The feasibility of iPS cell culture automation may greatly facilitate the use of this versatile cell source for a variety of biomedical applications.
authors.affiliation: Department of Regenerative Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, Yokohama City University, 3-9 Fukuura, Kanazawa-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa 236-0004, Japan.
authors.forename: Hiroyuki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Koike
authors.forename: Koji
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kubota
authors.forename: Keisuke
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sekine
authors.forename: Takanori
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Takebe
authors.forename: Rie
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ouchi
authors.forename: Yun-Wen
authors.initials: YW
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.forename: Yasuharu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ueno
authors.forename: Naoki
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Tanigawa
authors.forename: Hideki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Taniguchi
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001331:Automation; D018929:Cell Culture Techniques / Q000379:methods*; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D057026:Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology* / Q000378:metabolism; D051379:Mice; D014157:Transcription Factors / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D014157:Transcription Factors