Published online Jun 26, 2016. doi: 10.4252/wjsc.v8.i6.216
Peer-review started: November 23, 2015
First decision: January 18, 2016
Revised: February 18, 2016
Accepted: March 17, 2016
Article in press: March 18, 2016
Published online: June 26, 2016
Processing time: 217 Days and 7 Hours
Stem cells hold enormous promise for regenerative medicine as well as for engineering of model systems to study diseases and develop new drugs. The discovery of protocols that allow for generating induced pluripotent stem cells (IPSCs) from somatic cells has brought this promise steps closer to reality. However, as somatic cells might have accumulated various chromosomal abnormalities, including aneuploidies throughout their lives, the resulting IPSCs might no longer carry the perfect blueprint for the tissue to be generated, or worse, become at risk of adopting a malignant fate. In this review, we discuss the contribution of aneuploidy to healthy tissues and how aneuploidy can lead to disease. Furthermore, we review the differences between how somatic cells and stem cells respond to aneuploidy.
Core tip: Stem cells hold great therapeutic promise for regenerative medicine, especially with new protocols that can create induced pluripotent stem cells from terminally differentiated cells. However, somatic cells and stem cells cope differently with genomic instability. Therefore, it will be of the utmost importance to assess genomic integrity when preparing stem cell cultures for future therapy.