Generation of human induced pluripotent stem cells from urine

A research team led by Dr. Miguel Esteban and Dr. Duanqing Pei from GIBH has successfully generated human induced pluripotent stem cells from urine. This work was lately published in the internationally prestigious nephrological journal: Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN) on June 3rd, 2011.

Somatic cells can be transformed into embryonic stem cell (ESC)-like cells by forced expression of selected transcription factors. These cells, termed induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), can be differentiated into all cell lineages that compose a human body and are exempt of ethical concerns. This has created enormous interest for regenerative medicine and can also be used to create in vitro models of human physiology and disease. However, despite donor cells from various tissues can be reprogrammed to iPSCs, there is no consensus yet regarding which source is preferred. The latter is relevant if we consider that some donor cell types may be more prone than others to accumulation of epigenetic imprints and somatic cell mutations. Besides, in some circumstances use of a given tissue may not be feasible, for example in patients with certain types of skin or blood diseases. Here we have devised a non-invasive method for generating human iPSCs from renal tubular cells present in urine that eliminates many problems associated with other protocols.

Miguel said “this procedure is simple, reproducible, and the iPSCs display excellent differentiation ability. Thus, urine may be a preferred source for generating iPSCs in at least some instances.”