Human ES Cells Evolve in Culture

Researchers identify common genetic changes in cultured human embryonic stem cells, including one that confers a growth advantage.

Written byRuth Williams

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Human embryonic stem cellsWIKIMEDIA COMMONS, NISSIM BENVENISTY

A worldwide effort to screen the genomes of more than a hundred human embryonic stem cell (hESC) lines has revealed a number of consistent genetic differences that appear after the cells are cultured for a period of time. About 20 percent of the lines, for example, contained an amplification of a short region on chromosome 20, which appears to confer a growth advantage to the cells. The report was published online yesterday (November 27) in Nature Biotechnology.

A few years ago, a group of scientists decided to launch the global project, which was run by the International Stem Cell Initiative (ISCI), because they were concerned about the occurrence of genetic changes in cultured hESCs, which could spell trouble for the their use in cell replacement ...

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Meet the Author

Ruth Williams
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Ruth is a freelance journalist. Before freelancing, Ruth was a news editor for the Journal of Cell Biology in New York and an assistant editor for Nature Reviews Neuroscience in London. Prior to that, she was a bona fide pipette-wielding, test tube–shaking, lab coat–shirking research scientist. She has a PhD in genetics from King’s College London, and was a postdoc in stem cell biology at Imperial College London. Today she lives and writes in Connecticut.
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