HEMATOPOIESIS AND STEM CELLS Brief report Reprogramming of EBV-immortalized B-lymphocyte cell lines into induced pluripotent stem cells

EBV-immortalized B lymphocyte cell lines have been widely banked for study-ing a variety of diseases, including rare genetic disorders. These cell lines repre-sent an important resource for disease modeling with the induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology. Here we report the generation of iPSCs from EBV-immortalized B-cell lines derived from multiple inherited disease patients via a nonviral method. The reprogramming method for the EBV cell lines involves a distinct protocol compared with that of patient fibroblasts. The B-cell line– derived iPSCs expressed pluripotency markers, retained the inherited mutation and the parental V(D)J rearrangement pro-file, and differentiated into all 3 germ layer cell types. There was no integration of the reprogramming-related transgenes or the EBV-associated genes in these iPSCs. The ability to reprogram the widely banked patient B-cell lines will offer an unprecedented opportunity to generate human disease models and provide novel drug therapies. (Blood. 2011;118(7): 1801-1805