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EMBRYONIC STEM CELLS

A Pure Population of Ectodermal Cells Derived from Human Embryonic Stem Cells

^aInstitut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale U898, Nice, France;
^bUniversité de Nice-Sophia Antipolis, Nice, France;
^cInsertech, Bruce Rappaport Institute, and
^gStem Cell Center, Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Technion, Haifa, Israel;
^dUnité Mixte de Recherche, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique; Le Plessis-Robinson, France;
^eUniversité Paris XI, Hôpital Marie Lannelongue, Le Plessis-Robinson, France;
^fFoundation for Medical Research, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland;
^hDepartment of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Rambam Health Care Campus, Haifa, Israel

Key Words. Embryonic stem cells • Embryonic stem • Ectodermal cells • p63 • K14 • K18

Correspondence: Correspondence: Daniel Aberdam, Ph.D., INSERM U898 Faculty of Medicine, avenue Valombrose, 06107 Nice, France. Telephone: 33-493377718; Fax: 33-493811404; e-mail: aberdam{at}unice.fr

Received on July 23, 2007; accepted for publication on November 13, 2007.

First published online in STEM CELLS EXPRESS  November 21, 2007.


Embryonic stem (ES) cells represent a unique cellular model to recapitulate in vitro early steps of embryonic development and an unlimited cellular source in therapy for many diseases, as well as targets for drug discovery and toxicology screens. Although previous studies have reported epidermal differentiation of mouse and human embryonic stem (huES) cells, the heterogeneity of the resulting cell culture impairs the evaluation of differentiated cells for cell therapy. We report here the reproducible isolation of a homogenous ectodermal cell population, IT1, from human ES cells. Like primary cells, IT1 cells remain homogenous over 15 passages, expand up to 60 population doublings, and then die through senescence. Accordingly, IT1 cells display a normal karyotype and a somatic cell cycle kinetics and do not produce teratoma in nude mice. The production of K14-expressing epithelial cells driven by p63 expression strengthens the ectodermal nature of IT1 cells. Since IT1 can be isolated from different huES cell lines, it may provide a ready source of ectodermal progenitors for the development of a toxicology cell model, new-drug-screening strategies, and cell therapy transplantation.

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest is found at the end of this article.