A booster in your coffee to rejuvenate

In the last blog, we showed and described how to prepare Alex’ skin cells for the reprogramming procedure (to turn skin cells into stem cells). Now, we will show how we are actually turning the skin cells into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells).

Nuclear reprogramming timeline

Lauren:  A couple days ago I transferred your fibroblasts to a 6-well plate in which I will reprogram them. On the picture below you can see one of our tissue culture microscopes with a 6-well plate on the stage.

Fibroblasts in a 6-well plate under microscope

Alex:  It is really exciting to witness the whole process of coaxing my skin cells into stem cells. Tell me more about how you are doing this procedure.

Lauren:  Below is a picture of how your skin cells looked before I started the nuclear reprogramming.

Confluent fibroblast well before reprogramming

The reprogramming system containing four different proteins that are delivered by a virus system into your cells. The proteins delivered by the virus force and "remodel" your skin cells and turn them into iPS cells. The four viral factors are like a booster to your coffee to rejuvenate you. Now, since we are working with human cells and viruses, we need to protect ourselves and wear the appropriate personal protective equipment, like gloves, lab coat and face protection. On the other hand, to avoid contamination of your cells, every step of handling your cells needs to be performed in a biological safety cabinet.

Alex: Coffee sounds great, anywhere but Starbucks. I understand, you added the virus and you need to be careful that you don’t introduce other ‘bugs’ that could chew up my cells. Now I am curious what happens next?

Two days after reprogramming

Lauren:  Here is an image I have taken two days after I added the reprogramming protein factors. You can see how the morphology of the cells has drastically changed. Originally the skin cells were long and stretched out on the plate. With the addition of the reprogramming factors most of the cells have become smaller and more compact, they are not as stretched out as the original skin cells. It seems like the experiment is working and the skin cells start reprogramming into stem cells. Now we wait, change media every other day and watch how these reprogramming factors change the appearance or morphology of your skin cells in the next few days.

Alex: Great, where can we have a coffee?

Lauren: Let's go to Philz for coffee!

In the next blog, I will show you how the stem cell colonies start emerging from the culture and how ‘good looking’ colonies can be identified.