Just as learning a new skill takes time to hone, scientific discoveries take time to perfect. Such is the case with induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), the Nobel Prize winning technology that reprograms mature adult cells back into a pluripotent stem cell state. iPSCs are a powerful tool because they can develop into any cell found in the body. Scientists use iPSCs to model diseases in a dish, screen for new drugs, and to develop stem cell-based therapies for patients.

iPSCs grown in a cell culture dish.

The original iPSC technology, discovered by Dr. Shinya Yamanaka in 2006, requires viral delivery of four transcription factor genes, Oct4, Sox2, Klf4, and c-Myc, into the nucleus of an adult cell. These genes are inserted into the genome where they are activated to churn out their respective proteins. The combined expression of these four factors (OSKM) turns off the genetic programming of an adult cell and turns on the programming for a pluripotent stem cell.

The technology is pretty neat and allows scientists to make iPSCs from patients using a variety of different tissue sources including skin, blood, and even urine. However, there is a catch. Inserting reprogramming genes into a cell’s genome can be disruptive if the reprogramming genes fail to switch off or can cause cancer if nefarious oncogenes are turned on.

In response to this concern, scientists are developing alternative methods for making iPSCs using non-invasive methods. A CIRM-funded team from The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) published such a study yesterday in the journal Nature Biotechnology.

Led by senior author and CIRM grantee Dr. Kristin Baldwin, the TSRI team screened a large library of antibodies – proteins that recognize and bind to specific molecules – to identify ones that could substitute for the OSKM reprogramming factors. The hope was that some of these antibodies would bind to proteins on the surface of cells and turn on a molecular signaling cascade from the outside that would turn on the appropriate reprogramming genes from the inside of the cell.

The scientists screened over 100 million antibodies and found ones that could replace three of the four reprogramming factors (Oct4, Sox2, and c-Myc) when reprogramming mouse skin cells into iPSCs. They were unable to find an antibody to replace Klf4 in the current study but have it on their to-do list for future studies.

Dr. Baldwin explained how her team’s findings improve upon previous reprogramming methods in a TSRI news release,

Kristen Baldwin

“This result suggests that ultimately we might be able to make IPSCs without putting anything in the cell nucleus, which potentially means that these stem cells will have fewer mutations and overall better properties.”

 

Other groups have published other non-invasive iPSC reprogramming methods using cocktails of chemicals, proteins or microRNAs in place of virally delivering genes to make iPSCs. However, Baldwin’s study is the first (to our knowledge) to use antibodies to achieve this feat.

An added benefit to antibody reprogramming is that the team was able to learn more about the signaling pathways that were naturally activated by the iPSC reprogramming antibodies.

“The scientists found that one of the Sox2-replacing antibodies binds to a protein on the cell membrane called Basp1. This binding event blocks Basp1’s normal activity and thus removes the restraints on WT1, a transcription factor protein that works in the cell nucleus. WT1, unleashed, then alters the activity of multiple genes, ultimately including Sox2’s, to promote the stem cell state using a different order of events than when using the original reprogramming factors.”

iPSCs made by antibody reprogramming could address some of the long-standing issues associated with more traditional reprogramming methods and could offer further insights into the complex signaling required to turn adult cells back into a pluripotent state. Baldwin and her team are now on the hunt for antibodies that will reprogram human (rather than mouse) cells into iPSCs. Stay tuned!