Review of Human Embryonic and Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells: Lineage-Specific Differentiation Protocols

Human Embryonic and Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells: Lineage Specific Differentiation Protocols. Edited by Kaiming Ye and Sha Jin. 2011. ISBN 978-1617792663, 486 pages, Springer, New York, Dordrecht, Heidelberg, London.

Both human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) and human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) have enormous potential and promise to revolutionize human health care and disease treatment in the near future. In time, researchers and clinicians will most likely generate the vast majority of mature cell types in the human body from such cells. These populations of tissue-specific human cell types will open a new age in developmental biology, in vitro modeling of human diseases, cellular regenerative therapies, bioengineering, and drug discoveries.

Human Embryonic and Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells: Lineage Specific Differentiation Protocols presents an extensive and comprehensive array of protocols that describe methods in great depth and detail from a wide range of laboratories. These methods can be used to generate the cell types that will be vital for the development of clinical therapies, as well as powerful research tools in the laboratory. The editors have successfully collated these methods from around the world into a concise publication that will be of huge benefit to researchers and students who wish to explore the research area of stem cells and develop their own strategies to improve methodologies, thus enabling new discoveries in stem cell research.

The book is divided into six parts, each covering distinct areas of the field, thus making referencing specific methods much easier. Each chapter begins with an abstract, followed by an expansive introduction; the topic is then explored in detail in the rest of the chapter, which makes the reading far easier and subsequently more interesting. Each chapter makes effective use of illustrations and images and resources, and helpful tables are found throughout the book. Each protocol lists reagents, including their source and catalog number, which is a valuable resource for any researcher engaged in hESC research. In addition to the differentiation protocols, this manual also includes molecular biology protocols for the characterization of both hESCs and hiPSCs and their differentiated progeny, including fluorescent cell-sorting assays and quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays. Throughout many chapters, there are valuable tables of PCR primers and detailed lists of antibodies to a wide range of cell-surface and nuclear markers that are used in their characterization and for the characterization of their cell lineage derivatives. Additionally, each chapter contains a notes section giving supplementary “tips” to the reader; these are extremely useful and highlight the sort of questions the reader may ask, although some are more comprehensive than others.

Part I covers the maintenance and cryopreservation of hESCs and hiPSCs. Each chapter in this part has been written by experts in the field and includes valuable tables and references for those who wish to delve into the primary literature, features that are true for all six parts of the book. Part II introduces the generation of human iPSCs using viral and nonviral vector-based nuclear reprogramming. Again, comprehensive lists of techniques and references are presented along with superb images describing both methods and the expected morphology that the researcher would expect to observe following these techniques. The detail of these images ensures that the reader is fully informed about the expected outcomes as well as details of the methods being discussed. To have illustrations and images and descriptive text is extremely helpful to the reader, particularly if a student is new to the field.

Part III moves on to a discussion of the generation of patient-specific hiPSCs for clinical application. This area is explained very clearly, and both chapters provide an excellent in-depth methodology for the generation of iPSCs from two different tissue types. The detail is comprehensive and also includes excellent discussion on troubleshooting, which is essential for successful establishment and development of the methods for the reader.

Part IV introduces lineage-specific differentiation of hESCs and hiPSCs. Not surprisingly, this is the largest section of the book and covers the area to which the reader would be drawn by the title of the book. This topic is again, as with all sections of this book, covered in great detail with excellent references, comprehensive and precise methods, and cross-references to suppliers of reagents, along with appropriately detailed images and illustrations to help the reader understand what to expect while following these thoroughly detailed methods.

An area that has been the focus of recent interest is the potential for the three-dimensional culture of hESCs and hiPSCs in the development of differentiation protocols on specific scaffolds or hyrdrogels. This is discussed in Part V. This chapter specifically highlights neural differentiation, but this could be readily applicable to the differentiation of other cell types. The potential for the improved functionality of these cell types is covered in this chapter, as is their potential use in toxicology assays and drug screening. This chapter is an excellent introduction to this technology and outlines the methods and potential problems associated with it. Again, this chapter is comprehensive in detail, with references cited for additional reading.

The final part of this book, Part VI, covers the qualitative and quantitative analysis of the dynamics of hESC differentiation. It goes beyond the established methods of fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) analysis and standard population-level transcript analysis. This part consists of two chapters, one focussing on single-cell transcript profiling of differentiating hESCs and the other on the use of endogenous microRNA expression patterns to visualize neural differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells. Both chapters are well written, with comprehensive details on both methodologies and their relevance and importance in cell analysis. Reagents are well cataloged, as are the reference genes examined, and there are substantial supporting references included in each chapter. The notes sections of the chapters are set out well, with helpful guidelines for successful application of the methods.

In summary, Human Embryonic and Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells: Lineage-Specific Differentiation Protocols is a valuable resource for both seasoned and novice researchers. This book, is extremely well presented and easy to read and would make an excellent addition to the reference collection of any medical library or research laboratory. The book covers the topics thoroughly, is accurately referenced, and has complementary illustrations and images that augment the text very well. Informative tables give precise information to the reader on a range of topics, and the notes sections provide additional supporting information, which is supplementary to the main methods but, most importantly, complementary to it also.