Vitamin C Enhances the Generation of Mouse and Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells

Powering Reprogramming with Vitamin C

Authors

Miguel Angel Esteban, Tao Wang, Baoming Qin, Jiayin Yang, Dajiang Qin, Jinglei Cai, Wen Li, Zhihui Weng, Jiekai Chen, Su Ni, Keshi Chen, Yuan Li, Xiaopeng Liu, Jianyong Xu, Shiqiang Zhang, Feng Li, Wenzhi He, Krystyna Labuda, Yancheng Song, Anja Peterbauer, Susanne Wolbank, Heinz Redl, Mei Zhong, Daozhang Cai, Lingwen Zeng, Duanqing Pei

Stem Cell and Cancer Biology Group, Key Laboratory of Regenerative Biology, South China Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510663, China Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Clinical and Experimental Traumatology, Austrian Cluster for Tissue Regeneration, Vienna 1200, Austria The Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510630, China Red Cross Blood Transfusion Service of Upper Austria, Austrian Cluster for Tissue Regeneration, Linz 4020, Austria Center for Prenatal and Hereditary Disease Diagnosis, Nanfang Hospital, Guangzhou 510515, China

These authors contributed equally to this work

• Highlights
• Vitamin C improves the speed and efficiency of mouse iPSC generation
• Adding vitamin C converts pre-iPSCs to iPSCs
• Vitamin C alleviates the senescence roadblock to reprogramming
• Human iPSC generation is also improved by vitamin C

Summary

Somatic cells can be reprogrammed into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) by defined factors. However, the low efficiency and slow kinetics of the reprogramming process have hampered progress with this technology. Here we report that a natural compound, vitamin C (Vc), enhances iPSC generation from both mouse and human somatic cells. Vc acts at least in part by alleviating cell senescence, a recently identified roadblock for reprogramming. In addition, Vc accelerates gene expression changes and promotes the transition of pre-iPSC colonies to a fully reprogrammed state. Our results therefore highlight a straightforward method for improving the speed and efficiency of iPSC generation and provide additional insights into the mechanistic basis of the reprogramming process.