Kyoto University

Nikon Corporation

Osaka University

Masato Nakagawa

Shinya Yamanaka

Keisuke Okita

Norio Nakatsuji

Kazutoshi Takahashi

Kiyotoshi Sekiguchi

Motonari Uesugi

Yoichi Wada

Kazumitsu Ueda

Hirotada Watanabe

Hirofumi Suemori

Eihachiro Kawase

Yukimasa Taniguchi

Yuto Fujibayashi

Nao Hirata

Asako Murata

Young-Tae Chang

Kaori Yamauchi

Provided are a modified laminin having a cell-growth regulatory molecule bound to at least one site selected from the &#x3b1; chain N-terminus, the &#x3b1; chain C-terminus, the &#x3b2; chain N-terminus and the &#x3b3; chain N-terminus of laminin or a heterotrimeric laminin fragment, a method for culturing cells in the presence of the modified laminin, a method for establishing iPS cells in the presence of the modified laminin, and a culture substrate coated with the modified laminin. Human stem cells cultured in a xeno-free environment with the use of the modified laminin of the present invention can be provided as highly safe human stem cells applicable to regenerative medicine.

Modified laminin and use thereof

Provided is a method of producing an iPS cell, comprising bringing (a) Oct3/4 or a nucleic acid that encodes the same, (b) Klf4 or a nucleic acid that encodes the same, and (c) Sox2 or a nucleic acid that encodes the same, as well as (d1) L-Myc or a nucleic acid that encodes the same and/or (d2) a functional inhibitor of p53, into contact with a somatic cell. It is preferable that (a) a nucleic acid that encodes Oct3/4, (b) a nucleic acid that encodes Klf4, (c) a nucleic acid that encodes Sox2, (d1) a nucleic acid that encodes L-Myc and (e) a nucleic acid that encodes Lin28 or Lin28b be inserted into an episomal vector having loxP sequences placed in the same orientation on the 5' and 3&#x2032; sides of a vector constituent essential for the replication of the vector, that (d2) a nucleic acid that encodes an shRNA against p53 be inserted into a vector ensuring transient expression (plasmid vector and the like), and that all these nucleic acids be transferred to a somatic cell.

Method of producing induced pluripotent stem cells using inhibitors of P53

A method for sorting pluripotent cells using a compound which is eliminated from the pluripotent cells through the MDR1 transporter.

Method for sorting of pluripotent cells

An image processing apparatus includes an outline extracting processing unit inputting a phase contrast image of a cell colony acquired by an observing unit, and extracting an outline of the cell colony, an extracting unit extracting a feature quantity of an outline part of the cell colony based on brightness information at an outside and brightness information at an inside of the outline on the phase contrast image, and an automatic discriminating unit automatically discriminating whether or not the cell colony is an iPS cell colony based on a discriminant criterion determined in advance and the feature quantity extracted by the extracting unit.

Image processing apparatus, incubation observing apparatus, and image processing method

The present invention provides a method for improving iPS cell generation efficiency, which comprises a step of introducing a Myc variant having the following features: (1) having an activity to improve iPS cell generation efficiency which is comparative to, or greater than that of c-Myc; and (2) having a transformation activity which is lower than that of c-Myc; or a nucleic acid encoding the variant, in a nuclear reprogramming step. Also, the present invention provides a method for preparing iPS cells, which comprises a step of introducing the above Myc variant or a nucleic acid encoding the variant and a combination of nuclear reprogramming factors into somatic cells. Moreover, the present invention provides iPS cells comprising the nucleic acid encoding the Myc variant which can be obtained by the above method, and a method for preparing somatic cells which comprises inducing differentiation of the iPS cells.

Myc variants improve induced pluripotent stem cell generation efficiency

Growing community of inventors

Kyoto, Japan

Masato Nakagawa