Generation of iPS cells from normal and malignant hematopoietic cells.

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) can be generated from various types of cells with transduction of defined transcription factors. In addition to regenerative medicine, iPSCs have been used for the study of pathogenesis of inherited genetic diseases. Here, we presented the examples of the establishment of iPSCs from hematopoietic cells or fibroblasts from hematological disease patients. Hematopoietic cells would be a good donor source for establishing iPSCs owing to the high reprogramming efficiency. iPSCs can be generated not only from normal cells, but also from several types of tumor cells. However it is not so easy, because iPSCs from hematological malignancies have been established only from myeloproliferative neoplasms including chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) and JAK2-V617F mutation-positive polycythemia vera (PV). iPSC technology has great potential to promote oncology research based on patient samples.