L for the identification of loci that confer specific functional phenotypes,Noto et al. BMC Research Notes 2014, 7:437 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1756-0500/7/Page 5 ofFigure 2 Generation of hepatocyte ike cells from iPSC-K3aneuploid iPSCs. The top row of panels shows phase contrast microscopy revealing the changes in morphology that accompany each stage of differentiation. Remaining panels document the result of immunocytochemistry performed on the cells to detect proteins that are characteristically expressed at specific stages PubMed ID:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28827318 of development. At day 0, prior to adding differentiation media or growth factors, the cells express OCT4, a marker of pluripotent cells, but do not express SOX17. At day 5, the cells have formed definitive endoderm, as seen by expression of the endodermal transcription factors FOXA2 and SOX17. At day 10, HNF4a, which is highly expressed in hepatic progenitor cells, can be identified in the majority of cells in the culture. At the same stage, low levels of AFP, a fetal hepatocyte marker, can be identified in a subset of cells. By day 15, almost all cells robustly express AFP indicating that they are forming immature hepatocytes. By the end of the protocol most cells express Albumin, which is highly expressed in adult hepatocytes. Scale bar = 100 m.especially as they relate to cell growth. In the case of hepatocytes this may be particularly relevant given the variation in ploidy that is observed in adult hepatocytes and the potential contribution of ploidy to hepatocyte function.Conclusions To conclude we have demonstrated that a human iPSC line that has extensive chromosomal abnormalities retains the ability to differentiate into cells that display hepatocyte characteristics. These data demonstrate that there exists considerable flexibility in the chromosomal content that is compatible with differentiation of pluripotent cells to the hepatocyte lineage. MethodsCell cultureknockout serum replacement (Invitrogen), non essential amino acids (Invitrogen), glutamine (Invitrogen), penicillin/streptomycin (Invitrogen) and zbFGF (4 ng/ml)) on mitotically inactivated mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs). Alternatively, cells were cultured on a recombinant E-cadherin-IgG Fc fusion protein matrix [16] (StemAdhere, Primorigen Biosciences, Inc) in MEF-conditioned hES medium or mTeSR [17]. When cultured on E-cadherin-IgG Fc, cells were passaged every 4? days by non-enzymatic methods using Versene/EDTA. All work carried out using human pluripotent stem cells was approved by the MCW Human Stem Cell Research Oversight Committee (hSCRO approval# 09?05) and all work performed using animals was approved by the MCW IACUC.AG-490 clinical trials Hepatocyte-like cell differentiationHuman iPSCs (iPSC-K3 [13]) were routinely cultured under low oxygen conditions (4 O2/5 CO2) in hES cell media (DMEM/F12 medium supplemented with 20Pluripotent cells were differentiated as discussed previously [14,18]. Briefly, pluripotent cells cultured on E-cadherinIgG Fc were harvested using Accutase (Millipore) andNoto et al. BMC Research Notes 2014, 7:437 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1756-0500/7/Page 6 ofFigure 3 Expression of hepatic mRNAs following differentiation iPSC-K3aneuploid cells. Bar graph showing the relative levels of characteristic hepatic mRNAs identified by qRT-PCR in fresh human hepatocytes and in hepatocyte ike cells derived from iPSC-K3aneuploid (red bars) and control iPSC-K3 (parental; blue bars) cells. The level of mRNAs detected in primary human hepatocy.