Reprogramming by somatic cell nuclear transfer

Posted on June 3, 2014

Three recent papers have successfully reprogrammed human adult somatic cells by somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) into oocytes (de Souza, 2014). While the first successful human pluripotent NT-line were derived from fetal dermal fibroblasts and dermal fibroblasts from a patient with Leigh syndrome (Oregon Health & Science University, Tachibana et al., 2013), the recent publications describe the use of adult fibroblasts from a diabetic patient (New York Stem Cell Foundation, Yamada et al., 2014), and from a 75 year old donor (CHA university, Chung et al., 2014). The use of adult human donor cells offers an alternative to reprogramming by induced pluripotency. The need for SCNT cells and the differences to ESC and iPSC remains to be elucidated.