eprintid: 1394338 rev_number: 23 eprint_status: archive userid: 608 dir: disk0/01/39/43/38 datestamp: 2013-05-24 18:56:54 lastmod: 2021-07-27 23:54:51 status_changed: 2013-05-24 18:56:54 type: article metadata_visibility: show item_issues_count: 0 creators_name: Yilmazer, A creators_name: de Lázaro, I creators_name: Bussy, C creators_name: Kostarelos, K title: In Vivo Cell Reprogramming towards Pluripotency by Virus-Free Overexpression of Defined Factors ispublished: pub divisions: UCL divisions: A01 divisions: B02 divisions: C08 note: © 2013 Yilmazer et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. abstract: The ability to induce the reprogramming of somatic mammalian cells to a pluripotent state by the forced expression of specific transcription factors has helped redefine the rules of cell fate and plasticity, as well as open possibilities for disease modeling, drug screening and regenerative medicine. Here, we hypothesized that the non-viral forced expression of the four originally discovered defined factors (OKSM) in adult mice could result in in vivo reprogramming of cells in the transfected tissue in situ. We show that a single hydrodynamic tail-vein (HTV) injection of two plasmids encoding for Oct3/4, Sox2, Klf4 and c-Myc respectively, are highly expressed in the liver tissue of Balb/C adult mice. Hallmark pluripotency markers were upregulated within 24–48 h after injection, followed by down-regulation of all major hepatocellular markers. Generation of transcriptionally reprogrammed cells in vivo was further confirmed by positive staining of liver tissue sections for all major pluripotency markers in Balb/C mice and the Nanog-GFP reporter transgenic strain (TNG-A) with concomitant upregulation of GFP expression in situ. No signs of physiological or anatomical abnormalities or teratoma formation were observed in the liver examined up to 120 days. These findings indicate that virus-free expression of OKSM factors in vivo can transcriptionally reprogram cells in situ rapidly, efficiently and transiently, absent of host tissue damage or teratoma formation. date: 2013-01-23 official_url: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0054754 vfaculties: VFLS oa_status: green full_text_type: pub language: eng primo: open primo_central: open_green verified: verified_manual elements_source: crossref elements_id: 872019 doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0054754 language_elements: aa lyricists_name: Kostarelos, Kostas lyricists_id: KKOST53 full_text_status: public publication: PLoS ONE volume: 8 number: 1 article_number: e54754 pagerange: - issn: 1932-6203 editors_name: Stieger, K citation: Yilmazer, A; de Lázaro, I; Bussy, C; Kostarelos, K; (2013) In Vivo Cell Reprogramming towards Pluripotency by Virus-Free Overexpression of Defined Factors. PLoS ONE , 8 (1) , Article e54754. 10.1371/journal.pone.0054754 <https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0054754>. Green open access document_url: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1394338/1/journal.pone.0054754.pdf