Fig. 1.

Common technologies to reprogram cell fate. a Somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), in which an oocyte is enucleated to receive a nucleus from a donor cell such as a fibroblast uses the cytoplasmic machinery to reprogram the donor cell to pluripotency. Similar methods were used to clone entire animals such as Dolly the sheep and generate human stem cell lines. b Analogous to SCNT diffusible factors can reprogram the expression program of a donor cell such as a human amniocyte upon induced cell fusion with heterologous cells such as mouse myocytes to induce the expression of human muscle genes. c Alternatively, strong cell fate determination transcription factors can be overexpressed using different methods to change a cell fate. For example, the transcription factors Oct4, Sox2, Klf4, and c-Myc (OSKM) can convert a fibroblast into an induced pluripotent stem cell