Research Paper Volume 4, Issue 1 pp 60—73

Figure 5. Comparison of telomerase activity, cellular senescence and programmed cell death in HK cells before and after induced pluripotency.

(A) RT-PCR analysis of TERT-specific transcripts in parental HK cells and iPS clones. GAPDH was used as control. (B) Telomere lengths in HK and HK-derived iPS cells were determined by the terminal restriction fragment lengths. Southern blot analysis and corresponding telomere fragment lengths derived from densitometric quantification are shown. (C) Schematic representation of key senescence- and apoptosis-regulating pathways. (D) Changes in expression levels of key genes, involved in cellular senescence or apoptosis, were determined using the microarray data of three parental HK cells and three HK-derived iPS cells, and fold induction of individual genes in iPS cells, relative to those in parental HK cells, are shown. Statistically significant changes are indicated by asterisks (p<0.05).