Human oocytes reprogram somatic cells to a pluripotent state

The exchange of the oocyte’s genome with the genome of a somatic cell, followed by the derivation of pluripotent stem cells, could enable the generation of specific cells affected in degenerative human diseases. Such cells, carrying the patient’s genome, might be useful for cell replacement. Here we report that the development of human oocytes after genome exchange arrests at late cleavage stages in association with transcriptional abnormalities. In contrast, if the oocyte genome is not removed and the somatic cell genome is merely added, the resultant triploid cells develop to the blastocyst stage. Stem cell lines derived from these blastocysts differentiate into cell types of all three germ layers, and a pluripotent gene expression program is established on the genome derived from the somatic cell. This result demonstrates the feasibility of reprogramming human cells using oocytes and identifies removal of the oocyte genome as the primary cause of developmental failure after genome exchange. The generation of animals by transfer of the genome from an adult cell into an unfertilized oocyte 1 , and the isolation of pluripotent stem cells from human blastocysts 2 , raised the prospect of generating stem cells with a patient’s genome. This prospect holds much medical promise as these patient-specific stem cells could be used to generate differentiated cells for cell replacement. Unfortunately, progress towards this goal has been slowed by legal and social considerations limiting the availability of human oocytes for research. Despite these limitations, several studies were conducted 3–11 , but none have achieved the