Hepatic Differentiation of Murine Disease-Specific Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells Allows Disease Modelling In Vitro

Figure 1

iPS cells as model to study metabolic liver diseases. Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) can be generated using retro- or lentiviral constructs expressing the canonical reprogramming factors Oct4, Klf4, and Sox2 with or without c-Myc. This technique allows the generation of pluripotent stem cells from diseased individuals. Subjection of these iPS cells to hepatic differentiation protocols results in an easily accessible source of disease-specific hepatic cells. Importantly, this technique might pave the way for in depth study of corresponding liver diseases.