Designer Stem Cells: Despite their promise for use as disease models and in regenerative medicine, the generation of human-induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells has been hindered by the integration of vector and transgenes in the host cell genome. Recent studies using the Cre/LoxP recombination strategy and the piggyBac transposon approach have approached this objective. However, Yu et al. (p. 797 , published online 26 March) now show the derivation of human iPS cells from postnatal foreskin fibroblasts using the nonintegrating oriP/EBNA1-based episomal vectors. The resultant iPS cells show characteristics of human embryonic stem cells and are free of vector and transgenes.

Reprogramming blood cells to induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) provides a novel tool for modeling blood diseases in vitro. However, the well-known limitations of current reprogramming technologies include low efficiency, slow kinetics, and transgene integration and residual expression. In the present study, we have demonstrated that iPSCs free of transgene and vector sequences could be generated from human BM and CB mononuclear cells using nonintegrating episomal vectors. The reprogramming described here is up to 100 times more efficient, occurs 1-3 weeks faster compared with the reprogramming of fibroblasts, and does not require isolation of progenitors or multiple rounds of transfection. Blood-derived iPSC lines lacked rearrangements of IGH and TCR, indicating that their origin is non–B- or non–T-lymphoid cells. When cocultured on OP9, blood-derived iPSCs could be differentiated back to the blood cells, albeit with lower efficiency compared to fibroblast-derived iPSCs. We also generated transgene-free iPSCs from the BM of a patient with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). CML iPSCs showed a unique complex chromosomal translocation identified in marrow sample while displaying typical embryonic stem cell phenotype and pluripotent differentiation potential. This approach provides an opportunity to explore banked normal and diseased CB and BM samples without the limitations associated with virus-based methods.

The boxplot is a powerful visualization tool of sampled continuous data sets because of its rich information delivered, compact size, and effective visual expression. The advantage of boxplots is not widely appreciated. Many top journals suggest that boxplots should be used in place of bar charts, but have been wrongly replaced by bar charts. One technical barrier to the usage of boxplots in reporting quantitative data is that bench scientists are not competent in generating boxplots, and are afraid of R, a programming tool. This tutorial provides an effective training material in that even a novice without prior R experience can become competent, within one day, in generating professional boxplots. The available R scripts for boxplots are very limited in scope and are aimed at specialists, and the bench scientists have difficulty in following these scripts. This tutorial provides extensive step-by-step R scripts and instructions, as well as 29 illustrations for customizing every detail of the boxplot structures. Basic R commands and concepts are introduced for users without prior R experiences, which can be skipped by audiences with R knowledge. Violin plots are the enhanced version of boxplots, and therefore, this tutorial also provides a brief introduction and usage of the R package vioplot with one additional illustration. While the protocol is prepared for the newbies and trainees it will be a handy tool for infrequent users, and may benefit the experienced users as well since it provides scripts for customizing every detail of boxplots.

Generation of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) via the ectopic expression of reprogramming factors is a simple, advanced, yet often perplexing technology due to low efficiency, slow kinetics, and the use of numerous distinct systems for factor delivery. Scientists have used almost all available approaches for the delivery of reprogramming factors. Even the well-established retroviral vectors confuse some scientists due to different tropisms in use. The canonical virus-based reprogramming poses many problems, including insertional mutagenesis, residual expression and re-activation of reprogramming factors, uncontrolled silencing of transgenes, apoptosis, cell senescence, and strong immunogenicity. To eliminate or alleviate these problems, scientists have tried various other approaches for factor delivery and transgene removal. These include transient transfection, nonintegrating viral vectors, Cre-loxP excision of transgenes, excisable transposon, protein transduction, RNA transfection, microRNA transfection, RNA virion, RNA replicon, nonintegrating replicating episomal plasmids, minicircles, polycistron, and preintegration of inducible reprogramming factors. These alternative approaches have their own limitations. Even iPSCs generated with RNA approaches should be screened for possible transgene insertions mediated by active endogenous retroviruses in the human genome. Even experienced researchers may encounter difficulty in selecting and using these different technologies. This survey presents overviews of iPSC technologies with the intention to provide a quick yet comprehensive reference for both new and experienced reprogrammers.