Partially or fully differentiated cells can acquire, or be reprogrammed for, stem cell-like pluripotency, according to two studies published this week. The research adds to a growing body of work on the subtleties of pluripotency, since last linkurl:November's;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/53873/ landmark somatic cell reprogramming achievement. The first group, led by linkurl:Rudolph Jaenisch;http://www.wi.mit.edu/research/faculty/jaenisch.html at the Whitehead Institute, demonstrated in their Cell paper published today (April 17) that fully differentiated mouse B lymphocytes can be reprogrammed to a pluripotent state when given a cocktail of transcription factors. Until now it was unclear whether such cells could be induced for pluripotency. The second study, led by Stanford University School of Medicine researcher linkurl:Michael Clarke;http://med.stanford.edu/profiles/cancer/faculty/Michael_Clarke/ and published in Nature yesterday (April 16), used genetic mutations to induce pluripotency. They engineered triple mutant mice deficient in three genes that repress the differentiation of blood cells and found that those mice were able to not only reconstitute their...
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