Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Stem Cells. Apr 26, 2015; 7(3): 541-546
Published online Apr 26, 2015. doi: 10.4252/wjsc.v7.i3.541
Repressors of reprogramming
Melissa Popowski, Haley Tucker
Melissa Popowski, the Rockefeller University, New York, NY 10065, United States
Haley Tucker, Institute for Cellular and Molecular Biology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78701, United States
Author contributions: Popowski M and Tucker H conceived and wrote the review.
Conflict-of-interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Haley Tucker, PhD, Institute for Cellular and Molecular Biology, University of Texas at Austin, 1710 Red River, Austin, TX 78701, United States. haleytucker@austin.utexas.edu
Telephone: +1-512-4757705 Fax: +1-512-4757707
Received: July 31, 2014
Peer-review started: August 1, 2014
First decision: September 4, 2014
Revised: January 10, 2015
Accepted: January 18, 2015
Article in press: January 20, 2015
Published online: April 26, 2015
Processing time: 265 Days and 22.6 Hours
Abstract

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) have been the focal point of ever increasing interest and scrutiny as they hold the promise of personalized regenerative medicine. However, creation of iPSCs is an inefficient process that requires forced expression of potentially oncogenic proteins. In order to unlock the full potential of iPSCs, both for basic and clinical research, we must broaden our search for more reliable ways of inducing pluripotency in somatic cells. This review surveys an area of reprogramming that does not receive as much focus, barriers to reprogramming, in the hope of stimulating new ideas and approaches towards developing safer and more efficient methods of reprogramming. Better methods of iPSC creation will allow for more reliable disease modeling, better basic research into the pluripotent state and safer iPSCs that can be used in a clinical setting.

Keywords: Reprogramming; Induced pluripotency; Stem cells

Core tip: This review addresses an underappreciated aspect of cellular reprogramming, repressors of reprograming. We review current literature focusing on inhibitors that modify cellular reprogramming.