Establishment of a control induced pluripotent stem cell line SMBCi006-A from a healthy male donor

Generation of a non-integrated induced pluripotent stem cell line (SMBCi009-A) from urine-derived cells of a Chinese Familial hypercholesterolemia patient

Familial hypercholesterolemia (FH; OMIM: # 143890) is a common inherited autosomal dominant disease, characterized by high-level low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) in plasma. Elevated LDL-C levels is closely related with atherosclerotic plaques and premature cardiovascular disease if not treated in time. Here we generated an induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) line using urine cells (UCs) derived from an 8-year-old male FH patient who carrying two coding and pathogenic mutations of low-density lipoprotein receptor (LDLR) gene (exon12:c.C1747T and exon13: c. 1948 del G). This induced pluripotent stem cell line named SMBCi009-A can be used to understand more cellular details about FH.

An Overview on Promising Somatic Cell Sources Utilized for the Efficient Generation of Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells

Human induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPSCs) have enormous potential in understanding developmental biology, disease modeling, drug discovery, and regenerative medicine. The initial human iPSC studies used fibroblasts as a starting cell source to reprogram them; however, it has been identified to be a less appealing somatic cell source by numerous studies due to various reasons. One of the important criteria to achieve efficient reprogramming is determining an appropriate starting somatic cell type to induce pluripotency since the cellular source has a major influence on the reprogramming efficiency, kinetics, and quality of iPSCs. Therefore, numerous groups have explored various somatic cell sources to identify the promising sources for reprogramming into iPSCs with different reprogramming factor combinations. This review provides an overview of promising easily accessible somatic cell sources isolated in non-invasive or minimally invasive manner such as keratinocytes, urine cells, and peripheral blood mononuclear cells used for the generation of human iPSCs derived from healthy and diseased subjects. Notably, iPSCs generated from one of these cell types derived from the patient will offer ethical and clinical advantages. In addition, these promising somatic cell sources have the potential to efficiently generate bona fide iPSCs with improved reprogramming efficiency and faster kinetics. This knowledge will help in establishing strategies for safe and efficient reprogramming and the generation of patient-specific iPSCs from these cell types.