Generation Of Parkinson’s Disease Specific Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPSCs)

Induced pluripotent stem cell is a type of pluripotent stem cell derived from terminally differentiated cells either by chemical treatment or forced expression of specific genes. Induced pluripotent stem cells are similar to embryonic stem (ES) cells, in many aspects, such as the expression of certain stem cell genes, chromatin methylation patterns, doubling time, embryoid body formation, teratoma formation, and pluripotency and differentiability. Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is the most common neurodegenerative movement disorder. The pathological features of PD include dopaminergic neurons (DA) degeneration in the Substantial Nigra of middle brain and the formation of Lewy Body. Because of the lack of animal and cell models mimicking human PD, molecular mechanisms of PD pathogenesis remain largely unknown. The iPSCs derived from PD patients harbor genetic background of the patients and can be differentiated to dopaminergic neurons. In this study, we have generated iPS Cell lines from HDF of five sporadic PD patients, four familial PD patients and five normal control individuals. These iPS cell lines will likely form novel models to study pathogenic mechanism of PD.