Generation of Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells from Hair Follicle Bulge Neural Crest Stem Cells

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are promising candidates for the study of disease models as well as for tissue engineering purposes. Part of a strategy to develop safe reprogramming technique is reducing the number of exogenous reprogramming factors. Some cells types are more prone to reprogramming than others. iPSC induction with less reprogramming factors has been described in cells with endogenous expression levels of pluripotency genes, such as neural stem cells. Because multipotent neural crest stem cells (NCSCs) from mammalian hair follicle bulges also express pluripotency genes, we argued that this property would facilitate reprogramming of hair follicle bulge NCSCs and could substitute for the use of exogenous reprogramming factors. Although we confirmed the expression of pluripotency genes in hair follicle bulge cells, our results show that these cells do require a full set of reprogramming factors for iPSC induction. Hair follicle bulge-derived iPSCs were created with efficiencies similar to fibroblasts. We conclude that high endogenous levels of pluripotency factors are no guarantee for facilitated induction of pluripotency.