ALL STEM CELLS

A genome-editing system allows researchers to introduce multiple gene alterations into human stem cell lines.
A team led by Danwei Huangfu at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York used the recently developed genome-editing systems TALEN and CRISPR–Cas9 to efficiently create human embryonic stem (ES) cells and induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells containing up to three different gene alterations. The researchers used their approach to introduce various mutations linked to Alzheimer’s disease into iPS cells, as well as to delete certain genes in pancreatic cells derived from ES cells.
The method should make it faster and easier to determine the effects of disease-related gene changes on cell and tissue development, the authors say.
Cell ‘Stem Cell’ http://doi.org/s6w (2014)