Abstract

Technology of reprogramming of somatic cells to a pluripotent state allows generating induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and carrying out a broad range of studies. iPSCs can be obtained from patients suffering from inherited diseases to model the diseases and to study their pathological mechanisms at the molecular level after iPSC differentiation in relevant cell types. Another approach to model and study inherited diseases is using iPSCs from healthy donors and genome editing tools. The approach allows generating a panel of isogenic lines, which gives new opportunities in drug screening and toxicological testing. Moreover, iPSCs and their derivatives can be further used for substitutive cell therapy and transplantology.\n\nIn this study, we generated iPSCs from human embryonic fibroblasts using episomal vectors. The lines obtained expressed pluripotency markers, had a stable karyotype - 46:XY, and did not contain episome integrations into genome. The cell lines gave rise to derivatives of three germ layers during spontaneous differentiation in vitro and in vivo.