title: Brief azacytidine step allows the conversion of suspension human fibroblasts into neural progenitor-like cells.
abstract: In recent years transdifferentiation technology has enabled direct conversion of human fibroblasts to become a valuable, abundant and accessible cell source for patient-specific induced cell generation in biomedical research. The majority of transdifferentiation approaches rely upon viral gene delivery which due to random integration with the host genome can cause genome instability and tumorigenesis upon transplantation. Here, we provide a simple way to induce neural progenitor-like cells from human fibroblasts without genetic manipulation by changing physicochemical culture properties from monolayer culture into a suspension in the presence of a chemical DNA methyltransferase inhibitor agent, Azacytidine. We have demonstrated the expression of neural progenitor-like markers, morphology and the ability to spontaneously differentiate into neural-like cells. This approach is simple, inexpensive, lacks genetic manipulation and could be a foundation for future chemical neural transdifferentiation and a safe induction of neural progenitor cells from human fibroblasts for clinical applications.
authors: School of Biology, College of Science, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran ; Department of Stem Cells and Developmental Biology at Cell Science Research Center, Royan Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Technology, ACECR, Tehran, Iran.
authors: Fahimeh
authors: F
authors: Mirakhori
authors: School of Biology, College of Science, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.
authors: Bahman
authors: B
authors: Zeynali
authors: Department of Stem Cells and Developmental Biology at Cell Science Research Center, Royan Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Technology, ACECR, Tehran, Iran.
authors: Sahar
authors: S
authors: Kiani
authors: Department of Stem Cells and Developmental Biology at Cell Science Research Center, Royan Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Technology, ACECR, Tehran, Iran ; Department of Developmental Biology, University of Science and Culture, ACECR, Tehran, Iran.
authors: Hossein
authors: H
authors: Baharvand
keywords: Azacytidine; Fibroblast; Progenitor Cells; Transdifferentiation