Comparative induction of pluripotency in human umbilical vein endothelial cells and dermal fibroblasts and further differentiation into Hepatocytes

Generating induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) is a standardized technique. To date iPS cells have been generated from HUVECs using viral-based approaches. We employ an episomal plasmid-based approach to generate integration-free iPSCs (E-iPSCs) from human somatic cells. In this study, we compared the generation of E-iPSC lines from human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) and fetal foreskin derived fibroblast (HFF1). The efficiency of inducing pluripotency in HFF1 was 0.03% compared to 2.5% in HUVEC. This implies that the efficiency of reprogramming HUVECs is 83-fold higher than in HFF1 cells. Addition…