Mapping the human embryome: 1 to 10e13 and all the cells in between

The germline/soma dichotomy: implications for aging and degenerative disease

Human somatic cells are mortal due in large part to telomere shortening associated with cell division. Limited proliferative capacity may, in turn, limit response to injury and may play an important role in the etiology of age-related pathology. Pluripotent stem cells cultured in vitro appear to maintain long telomere length through relatively high levels of telomerase activity. We propose that the induced reversal of cell aging by transcriptional reprogramming, or alternatively, human embryonic stem cells engineered to escape immune surveillance, are effective platforms for the industrial-scale manufacture of young cells for the treatment of age-related pathologies. Such cell-based regenerative therapies will require newer manufacturing and delivery technologies to insure highly pure, identified and potent pluripotency-based therapeutic formulations.

LifeMap Discovery™: the embryonic development, stem cells, and regenerative medicine research portal

LifeMap Discovery™ provides investigators with an integrated database of embryonic development, stem cell biology and regenerative medicine. The hand-curated reconstruction of cell ontology with stem cell biology; including molecular, cellular, anatomical and disease-related information, provides efficient and easy-to-use, searchable research tools. The database collates in vivo and in vitro gene expression and guides translation from in vitro data to the clinical utility, and thus can be utilized as a powerful tool for research and discovery in stem cell biology, developmental biology, disease mechanisms and therapeutic discovery. LifeMap Discovery is freely available to academic nonprofit institutions at http://discovery.lifemapsc.com.

The ACTCellerate initiative: large-scale combinatorial cloning of novel human embryonic stem cell derivatives

Human embryonic stem cells offer a scalable and renewable source of all somatic cell types. Human embryonic progenitor (hEP) cells are partially differentiated endodermal, mesodermal and ectodermal cell types that have not undergone terminal differentiation and express an embryonic pattern of gene expression. Here, we describe a large-scale and reproducible method of isolating a diverse library of clonally purified hEP cell lines, many of which are capable of extended propagation in vitro. Initial microarray and non-negative matrix factorization gene-expression profiling suggests that the library consists of at least 140 distinct clones and contains many previously uncharacterized cell types derived from all germ layers that display diverse embryo- and site-specific homeobox gene expression. Despite the expression of many oncofetal genes, none of the hEP cell lines tested led to tumor formation when transplanted into immunocompromised mice. All hEP lines studied appear to have a finite replicative lifespan but have longer telomeres than most fetal- or adult-derived cells, thereby facilitating their use in the manufacture of purified lineages for research and human therapy.