SCL Student

Henry Chung

Research

Reprogramming of somatic cells into pluripotential status via epigenetic modifications
hESCs, by far is one of potential candidates for treating cellular degenerative diseases (for eg. Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, type I diabetes etc). However, the transplantation of allogenic hESC-derivatives hinders its clinical application due to graft rejection and immunosuppression technical issues. It has been proposed that patient-specific ESCs maybe generated from Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT) and induced pluripotency (iPS) technologies and animal models have shown clinical impact. Transferring these systems to humans have posed many ethical and technical issues, such as; availability of human eggs required for SCNT and the insertional mutatgenesis caused by the random viral integration, respectively.

This project intends to steer away from controversial debate and genetic modifications, with the aim to reprogram terminally differentiated somatic cells back into a pluripotent state via epigenetic modifications, such as DNAmethylationand histone acetylations. 2 chemicals; 5’aza-2-deoxycytidine and Trichostatin A, both intends to re-establish expression of silienced genes (in this case – pluripotent genes) through these 2 mechanisms. Upon treatment with these 2 agents, it is proposed that pluripotent genes will be re-expressed when exposed to certain conditions.Future plans intended will include microarray analysis to determine the pathways regulating pluripotency, in combination with tissue culturing with the addition of inducers/inhibitors of certain pathways in order to drive the expression of somatic cells to become pluripotent-like.