Abstract
Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) hold great potential for the treatment of various degenerative diseases. Pluripotent hESCs have a great ability to undergo unlimited self-renewal in culture and to differentiate into all cell types in the body. The journey of hESC research is not that smooth, as it has faced several challenges which are limited to not only tumor formation and immunorejection but also social, ethical, and political aspects. The isolation of hESCs from the human embryo is considered highly objectionable as it requires the destruction of the human embryo. The issue was debated and discussed in both public and government platforms, which led to banning of hESC research in many countries around the world. The banning has negatively affected the progress of hESC research as many federal governments around the world stopped research funding. Afterward, some countries lifted the ban and allowed the funding in hESC research, but the damage has already been done on the progress of research. Under these unfavorable conditions, still some progress was made to isolate, culture, and characterize hESCs using different strategies. In this review, we have summarized various strategies used to successfully isolate, culture, and characterize hESCs. Finally, hESCs hold a great promise for clinical applications with proper strategies to minimize the teratoma formation and immunorejection and better cell transplantation strategies.
Highlights
It was reported that 2 Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) lines were obtained from 4 blastocysts, whereas only 3 hESC lines could be isolated from 13 blastocysts and, in some cases, only 3 hESC lines could be isolated from 58 blastocysts [13]
We have briefly described various culture conditions which have been used to improve both quality and quantity of generation of hESCs
Most of the hESC lines are obtained through two-dimensional (2D) culture conditions
Summary
Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) were first isolated from mouse embryos in 1981, and the word “embryonic stem cell” was first coined by Gail R. The ICM can be isolated by using laser dissection [8, 9] and by using immunosurgery procedures [10,11,12]. The immunosurgery procedure requires the culture media which contain guinea pig serum; the use of animal serum makes the immunosurgery technique not suitable for the generation of clinical-grade hESC lines [13]. In another method, hESC lines can be isolated from ICM by microdissection of human blastocysts using fine needles.
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