iPSCs (Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells)

Human body is made up of different types of cells, and the degeneration and regeneration of
cells continues throughout the life of the normal body. There are some specialized cells in the
Human body that have the ability to produce new cells which replace the old cells which have
been damaged and lost. There are certain features of these cells which promise this specialty.
Firstly, they have the ability to divide again and again and secondly, these divided cells may get
modified in some other specialized cells which make the body. Human Embryonic stem cells
have the ability to become any cell in the body, the term for this multiple potential is said to be
pluripotent. There are four major types of human pluripotent stem cells which include,
embryonic stem cell, nuclear transport stem cells, Parthenote stem cells and induced stem cells.
Former three require egg cells to create the embryonic cells which means that they require the
human eggs which are fertilized by the sperm. In 2007, Scientists developed a new way to
generate pluripotent stem cells without the human eggs (Omole., 2018). Research had revealed
that a few of more than 20,000 proteins that are encoded by the genes inside human embryonic
stem cells were actually responsible for stem cell characteristics of pluripotency and self-
renewal. Although the pluripotency genes are present in all cells, they are actually turned off in
normal adult cells because it is not yet known how to turn them on. Scientists decided to
introduce extra copies of the pluripotency genes into normal adult skin cells in culture by
infecting those cells with special laboratory viruses that have been engineered to contain the
pluripotency genes. Once infected, after a few weeks, some of the cells reverted to pluripotent
cells with characteristics of embryonic stem cell lines. These are called induced pluripotent stem
cells. This technology led to major breakthroughs in advanced Regenerative medicines and for
other therapeutic purposes (Omole., 2018). For example, these pluripotent stem cells can be
induced to form beta Islets cells which can be used to treat diabetes, into new blood cells in
leukemia patients without any tumor to treat cancer, or into some modified neurons which
promise the advanced treatment for neurological disorders.

Quality control of iPSCs.

This reprogramming technology has led to generation of large number of disease specific cell
lines of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) which can be used to treat different diseases or
for drug production on large scale. But the major obstruction was the Quality control (QC) of
these cell lines which has been generated in different laboratories in accordance of different
quality control measures (Sullivan., 2018). European Bank for Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells
(EBiSC) proposed some of the measures to provide quality controlled ipsc cell lines which can
be utilized effectively. The purpose of this quality control testing is to assure the identity, viability
and sterility of the iPSC lines. Additionally, some other characterization parameters are followed
to assure the downstream use of these pluripotent stem cell lines such as:
● Flow cytometry which is used to identify the percentage of marker expression which
promise the pluripotency or self-renewal (O'Shea., 2020).
● Genomic stability testing is usually carried out as human pluripotent stem cells have
been prone to genetic drift over long periods of time in culture, and this is basically done
by SNP analysis or G- banding (O'Shea., 2020).
● Pluripotency potential testing
 ● iPSC morphology testing
All these quality control tests undergo vigorous qualification such as validation of
sensitivity limits, verification of positive and negative controls and validation with diverse
test samples so that quality-controlled iPSC lines have been generated (O'Shea., 2020).

Mycoplasma species commonly infecting cell cultures.

There are twenty known species of mycoplasma which have originated from humans, bovine or
from porcine and they cause more than 95% of contamination of cell cultures
(Mycoplasma Contamination | ATCC, n.d.)
.

Mycoplasma species Origin

M. fermentans human

M. arginini bovine

M. hominis human

M. hyorhinis porcine

M. orale human

M. salivarium human

M. pirum human

Acholeplasma laidlawii bovine

References
1- Omole, A. E., & Fakoya, A. O. J. (2018). Ten years of progress and promise of induced
pluripotent stem cells: historical origins, characteristics, mechanisms, limitations, and
potential applications. PeerJ, 6, e4370.
2- Sullivan, S., Stacey, G. N., Akazawa, C., Aoyama, N., Baptista, R., Bedford, P., ... &
Song, J. (2018). Quality control guidelines for clinical-grade human induced pluripotent
stem cell lines. Regenerative medicine, 13(7), 859-866.
3- O'Shea, O., Steeg, R., Chapman, C., Mackintosh, P., & Stacey, G. N. (2020).
Development and implementation of large-scale quality control for the European bank for
induced Pluripotent Stem Cells. Stem cell research, 45, 101773.
4- Mycoplasma Contamination | ATCC. (n.d.). Retrieved August 5, 2023, from
https://www.atcc.org/the-science/authentication/mycoplasma-contamination