MicroRNA profiles of four induced pluripotent stem cell lines derived from distinct tissues

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are generated from a vast number of adult cell types. While they all acquired embryonic stem cell (ESC)-like properties during reprogramming, differences in certain characteristics, including differentiation potential, remained. These differences are hypothesized to be due to epigenetic memory or individual genetic background.

This study compared microRNA (miRNA) profiles, which is one aspect of epigenetic regulation, of four iPSC lines derived from dermal fibroblasts, hair follicle keratinocytes, peripheral blood T cells, and exfoliated renal epithelial cells by nCounter^® miRNA expression panels. 110 miRNAs were expressed in all iPSC lines, which accounted for 67.5-75.9% of expressed miRNAs in each line, while there were only 3, 4, 9, and 28 uniquely expressed miRNAs in each line. MiRNA profiles of the four iPSC lines clustered together, but away from those of mature cells of origin or ESCs retrieved from the Gene Expression Omnibus database as analyzed by principal component analysis. These results suggested that the miRNA profiles of the four iPSC lines are mostly similar to each other, though with some specific unique gene expression, and do not appear to indicate any obvious differences between the iPSC lines derived from different adult cell types in terms of miRNA expression.