May 13, 2011

expert reaction to new research on IPS cells and immune response as published in Nature

Research suggested that induced pluripotent stem (IPS) cells, which can be genetically ‘reprogrammed’ into any cell type in the body, could generate an immune response in mice, raising questions over their suitability for medical treatments.

Dr Paul Fairchild, Director of the Oxford Stem Cell Institute, University of Oxford, said:

“The results of this study would not have been anticipated, we assumed that cells derived in this way would never be rejected by the recipient. However, I think it would be premature for this study to cast a cloud over the whole of regenerative medicine.

“There are lots of questions raised that will need to be addressed. This study was conducted in inbred strains of mice so the question arises as to whether we would find similar results in humans? They also showed there were various outcomes depending on how the IPS cells were reprogrammed, so there is a possibility we would be able to find a way of reprogramming that does not provoke an immune response. The other important issue is that the authors of this paper derived their IPS cells from embryonic fibroblasts rather than adult cells. However, embryonic cells may behave differently in the genes they express. In a clinical setting we would always start with adult cells from the patient, so it is important to know whether we would see the same immunogenicity with IPS cells derived from adult cells?

“So this study sounds a note of caution but it is too premature to reach firm conclusions about its impact on clinical applications of IPS cells.”

Research published in Nature by Yang Xu et al., Friday 13 May.