News Releases & Research Results Development of a method for selectively removing undifferentiated iPS cells with an anti-obesity drug - Accelerating the realization of regenerative medicine with reduced risks of formation -

The results of the collaborative research and development project conducted by Specially Appointed Lecturer Shugo Toyama of the Department of Cardiology, Assistant Professor Sho Tanosaki of the Department of Emergency and Critical Care Medicine, Professor Makoto Suematsu of the Department of Biochemistry, and Minoru Ko of the Department of Systems Medicine, Keio University School of Medicine and LIPIDOME LAB Co., Ltd.

• Safer cells for transplantation were successfully prepared by solving an issue regarding clinical application, i.e., removing potentially carcinogenic undifferentiated iPS cells efficiently from differentiated cells derived from human iPS cells.
• Specifically, fatty acids were demonstrated to be actively synthesized in human iPS cells. Based on this property, a novel method was established to selectively kill potentially carcinogenic undifferentiated iPS cells by inhibiting fatty acid synthesis with “orlistat,” a fatty acid synthetase inhibitor approved as an anti-obesity drug by the FDA (US Food and Drug Administration), and select only live differentiated cells such as myocardial and nerve cells differentiated from human iPS cells.
• The results of this R&D project should accelerate the realization of regenerative medicine in various fields.

This program was conducted with the support of the Research Center Network for Realization of Regenerative Medicine by AMED.

The results of this R&D project were published in the US scientific journal iScience on September 5.

Tanosaki S., et al. Fatty Acid Synthesis Is Indispensable for Survival of Human Pluripotent Stem Cells iScience
DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2020.101535