Expression of Six Proteins Causes Reprogramming of Porcine Fibroblasts Into Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells With Both Active X Chromosomes

In this study, we created porcine-induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells with the expression of six reprogramming factors (Oct3/4, Klf4, Sox2, c-Myc, Lin28, and Nanog). The resulting cells showed growth dependent on LIF (leukemia inhibitory factor) and expression of multiple stem cell markers. Furthermore, the iPS cells caused teratoma formation with three layers of differentiation and had both active X chromosomes (XaXa). Our iPS cells satisfied the both of important characteristics of stem cells: teratoma formation and activation of both X chromosomes. Injection of these iPS cells into morula stage embryos showed that these cells participate in the early stage of porcine embryogenesis. Furthermore, the RNA-Seq analysis detected that expression levels of endogenous pluripotent related genes, NANOG, SOX2, ZFP42, OCT3/4, ESRRB, and ERAS were much higher in iPS with six factors than that with four reprogramming factors. We can conclude that the expression of six reprogramming factors enables the creation of porcine iPS cells, which is partially close to naive iPS state. J. Cell. Biochem. 118: 537–553, 2017. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.