[Research and Application of iPS Cells in Blood System]

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) were first constructed by Takahshi and et al in 2006. They converted the mouse fibroblasts into ES-like cells via viral transduction with four transcription factors (Oct4, Sox2, Klf4 and c-Myc). Since, the significant progress has been made and many researchers have succeeded in inducing iPS cells from other human somatic cells by some novel approaches, such as combining transcriptional factors and small chemicals. IPS cells have significant prospect in clinical application. IPS cells derived from patient somatic cells can be used as a model in studying the pathogenesis of genetic hematological disease and applied in therapeutic screenings. Recent studies suggested that iPS cells can differentiate into red blood cells and platelets in vitro, which may make up a big blood bank for transfusion in future. In this review, current understanding of both recombinant technology of iPS cells and the research progress in hematology are summarized.