Skin biopsy and patient-specific stem cell lines

Abstract

The generation of patient-specific induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells permits the development of next-generation patient-specific systems biology models reflecting personalized genomics profiles to better understand pathophysiology. In this chapter, we describe how to create a patient-specific iPS cell line. There are three major steps: (1) performing a skin biopsy procedure on the patient; (2) extracting human fibroblast cells from the skin biopsy tissue; and (3) reprogramming patient-specific fibroblast cells into the pluripotent stem cell stage.