Growth Factors and the Serum-Free Culture of Human Pluripotent Stem Cells

Abstract

The development of human embryonic stem (ES) cells in 1998 (Thomson et al., 1998), presaged by work on stem cell lines from human embryonal carcinoma (EC) and monkey ES cells (review in Pera et al., 2000), led to a great surge of interest in the biology and potential therapeutic applications of pluripotent stem cells. The early reports of derivation of both monkey and human ES cells used serumcontaining medium in combination with mouse embryo feeder cell support to maintain stem cell renewal, methodology that did not differ very much from those used previously to establish and propagate mouse ES cells or human EC cells. However, several critical differences in growth properties of mouse and ..