title: Efficient germ-line transmission obtained with transgene-free induced pluripotent stem cells.
abstract: Induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells hold great promise for regenerative medicine. To overcome potential problems associated with transgene insertions, efforts have been directed over the past several years to generate transgene-free iPS cells by using non-viral-vector approaches. To date, however, cells generated through such procedures have had problems producing reproductively competent animals, suggesting that their quality needed further improvement. Here we report the use of optimized assemblies of reprogramming factors and selection markers incorporated into single plasmids as nonintegrating episomes to generate germ-line-competent iPS cells. In particular, the pMaster12 episome can produce transgene-free iPS cells that, when grown in 2i medium, recapitulate good mouse ES cells, in terms of their competency for generating germ-line chimeras.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Agrobiotechnology, College of Biological Sciences, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, People's Republic of China; and.
authors.forename: Sen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Genetics and.
authors.forename: Yuanyuan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Agrobiotechnology, College of Biological Sciences, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, People's Republic of China; and.
authors.forename: Xi
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Genetics andHoward Hughes Medical Institute, University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City, UT 84112 mario.capecchi@genetics.utah.edu.
authors.forename: Mario R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Capecchi
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D063990:Gene Ontology; D005822:Genetic Vectors / Q000378:metabolism; D005854:Germ Cells / Q000378:metabolism*; D057026:Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology / Q000378:metabolism*; D051379:Mice; D010957:Plasmids / Q000378:metabolism; D019076:Transgenes / Q000235:genetics*