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US 11,987,815 B2Granted
Methods for reprogramming somatic cells
AssigneeWhitehead Institute for Biomedical Research
InventorsRudolf Jaenisch, Konrad Hochedlinger
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Abstract
The invention provides methods for reprogramming somatic cells to generate multipotent or pluripotent cells. Such methods are useful for a variety of purposes, including treating or preventing a medical condition in an individual. The invention further provides methods for identifying an agent that reprograms somatic cells to a less differentiated state.
Claims12
A method for identifying an agent capable of reprograming somatic cells to a pluripotent state, comprising:
- (i) contacting a candidate agent with an engineered somatic cell comprising an endogenous pluripotency gene operably linked to a DNA encoding a selectable marker in such a manner that the expression of the selectable marker substantially matches the expression of the endogenous pluripotency gene;
- and
- (ii) selecting the cell contacted with the candidate agent for expression of the selectable marker, and assessing for pluripotency characteristics of the selected cell,
- wherein the presence of at least a subset of pluripotency characteristics indicates that the candidate agent is capable of reprogramming somatic cells to a pluripotent state;
- wherein the engineered somatic cell comprises an exogenous nucleic acid encoding Oct4 operably linked to at least one inducible regulatory sequence, and
- wherein the engineered somatic cell is induced to express from the exogenous nucleic acid an amount of Oct4 expression comparable to the amount of Oct4 expression in an embryonic stem cell before contacting with the candidate agent.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.