Generation of porcine induced pluripotent stem cells and evaluation of their major histocompatibility complex protein expression in vitro.

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are thought to be highly beneficial in the field of regenerative medicine and are believed to overcome immunogenic barriers to cell transplantation. However, issues remain regarding their safety and efficiency for medical use. Furthermore, some recent reports have suggested that iPSCs could be targeted by the autologous immune system. To promote practical applications of iPSCs, in depth research using appropriate animal models is needed and porcine species appear to provide an ideal model. Recent studies have focused on the generation of porcine iPSC cells, but no investigations of their immunological properties have been conducted to date. In the present study, we generated putative iPSCs from porcine somatic cells and measured major histocompatibility complex (MHC) expression on the iPSCs and their derivatives. Compact colonies that expressed pluripotent markers appeared 11 days after viral infection. Embryonic bodies (EB) were produced and differentiated into three germ layers in vitro. Karyotyping and swine leukocyte antigen (SLA) typing showed that the iPSCs were identical to parental somatic cells. Porcine iPSCs expressed only low levels of MHC class I and moderately increased levels on their differentiated derivatives, whereas MHC class II was rarely expressed. In the presence of interferon-gamma (IFN-γ), the expression of MHC class I was elevated on differentiated iPSCs, and gradually decreased after withdrawal of the cytokine. Our data suggest that porcine iPSCs could be useful for preclinical studies of the efficiency and viability of iPSCs, and for devising strategies to rescue transplanted cells from the autologous immune system.