Establishment of induced pluripotent stem cells from prairie vole-derived fibroblast

Abstract The prairie vole is regarded as a useful experimental animal as it illustrates social behavior, such as pair bonding. Therefore, by the use of high-quality iPS cells from prairie vole somatic cells, we can generate knock-out and knock in prairie vole. The establishment condition of iPS cells from prairie vole iPS cells creates room for optimization. Through a number of trials and errors, the efficacy of the establishment of iPS cells has been dramatically improved. In detail, the polycistronic vector system and Nanog and Lin28 genes allowed us to improve the efficacy of iPS cells from prairie vole fibroblasts. Furthermore, three-dimensional colonies of iPS cells generated with M3O (which has enhanced trans activity of Oct3/4) Sox2, Klf4, c-Myc, Nanog, and Lin28 from prairie vole fibroblast. Our prairie vole iPS cells express SSEA-1 on the cellular surface, and require leukemia inhibitory factor for self-renewal of cells. Those characteristics close to those of the mouse ES cells allow contributing the germline cell to host animals, when injecting into the blastocyst.