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. 2012 Jan 19;3(1):51–59. doi: 10.1007/s13238-012-2002-0

A novel xeno-free and feeder-cell-free system for human pluripotent stem cell culture

Qihui Wang 1,2, Xiaoning Mou 1,2, Henghua Cao 1, Qingzhang Meng 1, Yanni Ma 1, Pengcheng Han 1,2, Junjie Jiang 1,2, Hao Zhang 3, Yue Ma 1,✉
PMCID: PMC4875217  PMID: 22259120

Abstract

While human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) have promising applications in regenerative medicine, most of the hiPSC lines available today are not suitable for clinical applications due to contamination with nonhuman materials, such as sialic acid, and potential pathogens from animal-product-containing cell culture systems. Although several xeno-free cell culture systems have been established recently, their use of human fibroblasts as feeders reduces the clinical potential of hiPSCs due to batch-to-batch variation in the feeders and time-consuming preparation processes. In this study, we have developed a xeno-free and feeder-cell-free human embryonic stem cell (hESC)/hiPSC culture system using human plasma and human placenta extracts. The system maintains the self-renewing capacity and pluripotency of hESCs for more than 40 passages. Human iPSCs were also derived from human dermal fibroblasts using this culture system by overexpressing three transcription factors—Oct4, Sox2 and Nanog. The culture system developed here is inexpensive and suitable for large scale production.

Electronic Supplementary Material

Supplementary material is available for this article at 10.1007/s13238-012-2002-0 and is accessible for authorized users.

Keywords: human embryonic stem cells, human induced pluripotent stem cells, reprogramming, xeno-free and feeder-cell-free culture system

Electronic supplementary material

13238_2012_2002_MOESM1_ESM.pdf (297.1KB, pdf)

Supplementary material, approximately 297 KB.

Footnotes

These authors contributed equally to the work.

Electronic Supplementary Material

Supplementary material is available for this article at 10.1007/s13238-012-2002-0 and is accessible for authorized users.

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Supplementary Materials

13238_2012_2002_MOESM1_ESM.pdf (297.1KB, pdf)

Supplementary material, approximately 297 KB.

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