Source: University of California - Los Angeles
Date: September 8, 2010
Summary:
University of California - Los Angeles stem cell researchers have found that human skin cells reprogrammed into female induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells — which have the embryonic-like potential to become any cell in the body — retain an inactive X chromosome.
The finding could have implications for studying X chromosome–linked diseases such as Rett syndrome, a nervous system disorder caused by mutations in a gene located on the chromosome. The current finding differs from that seen in mouse skin cells that have been reprogrammed into iPS cells, in which the inactive X chromosome reactivates, said Kathrin Plath, senior author of the study and a scientist with the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA. The study is published in the Sept. 3 issue of the journal Cell Stem Cell.
