P49. Cell reprogramming factors of neural crest cells

Abstract

The iPS-technology has opened a previously unexplored way to study the mechanisms of cell differentiation. Thus, cells that have already differentiated or committed to a certain cell type can potentially be reprogrammed to either a less differentiated state or a different type of cells. Such cell reprogramming technology has so far been applied to an in vitro situation. Toward the goal of achieving cell reprogramming directly in vivo, we have focused on neural crest cells (NCCs), multipotent precursors of peripheral nervous system. NCCs are highly amenable for in vivo gene manipulation using in ovo electroporation technique, particularly in chicken embryos. In addition, the entire cell lineage derived from NCCs has been described, and many transcriptional factors are available that regulate the development of NCCs and their derivatives. Combining these advantages of NCCs with recently established technologies such as tet-on inducible expression (Watanabe et al., 2007. Dev. Biol.) and transposon-mediated stable integration of electroporated genes (Sato et al., 2007. Dev. Biol.), NCCs have become an excellent model to achieve the in vivo cell reprogramming. We have found that Sox9, Sox 10, and canonical Wnt signal are powerful candidates with which NCCs and their derivatives can be reprogrammed directly in vivo.