ABSTRACT
Human pluripotent stem cells (PSC) are stem cells that can differentiate into virtually any cell type. As PSC are also endlessly self-renewing in vitro, they are viewed as an unlimited and physiologically relevant source of cells for research and regenerative medicine. Human PSC can either be isolated from the inner cell mass of discarded embryos, in which case they are called embryonic stem (ES) cells; or derived from differentiated cells by altering their transcriptional network and epigenetic state to produce induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, as described in the seminal work by Shinya Yamanaka (Takahashi and Yamanaka, 2006; Takahashi et al., 2007; Yu and Thomson, 2008). We will focus on the potential applications of iPS cells in neurodegenerative diseases and will delineate what may be a new paradigm for the development of iPS-based clinical treatments for these debilitating diseases.
