The research group of Koichi Hasegawa, a lecturer at a specific center of Kyoto University, and Noriko Yoshida, is a new synthetic medium (culture medium) for culturing pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells and ES cells) and a culture method using the medium. Was successfully developed.Since this synthetic medium uses an artificially synthesized compound, it is possible to reduce the material cost from one-fifth to one-tenth.
A large amount of medium is required for the production and utilization of pluripotent stem cells.This medium costs 1 to 5 yen per liter for research and 7 to 1 yen per liter for clinical use.This has contributed to raising the cost of regenerative medicine, drug discovery, and research using iPS cells.In particular, the protein called "growth factor" is the most expensive of the medium components.Since at least two growth factors are essential and must be produced and purified by cultured cells or E. coli, the cost of producing the medium increases.
This time, we discovered a compound that enables the proliferation of pluripotent stem cells, a compound that suppresses differentiation, and a compound that accelerates proliferation.By combining these, we succeeded in developing a synthetic medium that does not use growth factors.It was also confirmed that this medium increases pluripotent stem cells and produces iPS cells in the same manner as other media.
Since this synthetic medium does not use growth factors, the material cost is about 1 yen per liter.It can be produced at one-fifth to one-tenth the cost of other media.Therefore, it is expected that the cost of regenerative medicine and drug discovery using iPS cells can be significantly reduced by using this synthetic medium.In the future, aiming for practical use, the company plans to confirm the safety for medical applications and the durability for commercialization.
Paper information:[Nature Biomedical Engineering] Chemically defined and growth-factor-free culture system for the expansion and derivation of human pluripotent stem cells
