Description
In pluripotential reprogramming, a pluripotent state is established within somatic cells. In this study, we have generated induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells from bi-maternal (uniparental) parthenogenetic neural stem cells (pNSCs) by transduction with four (Oct4, Klf4, Sox2, and c-Myc) or two (Oct4 and Klf4) transcription factors. The parthenogenetic iPS (piPS) cells directly reprogrammed from pNSCs were able to generate germline-competent himeras, and hierarchical clustering analysis showed that piPS cells were clustered more closer to parthenogenetic ES cells than normal female ES cells. Interestingly, piPS cells showed loss of parthenogenetic-specific imprinting patterns of donor cells. Microarray data also showed that the maternally imprinted genes, which were not expressed in pNSCs, were upregulated in piPS cells, indicating that pluripotential reprogramming lead to induce loss of imprinting as well as re-establishment of various features of pluripotent cells in parthenogenetic somatic cells.