OCT4: A penetrant pluripotency inducer

Abstract

Native OCT4 protein has the intrinsic ability of crossing cellular membranes to enter cells. This finding could revive efforts to induce pluripotency with proteins replacing nucleic acid-based approaches, and raises the intriguing question as to whether OCT4 can act non-cell-autonomously.

Keywords

• OCT4
• Cell penetrating peptide
• Induced pluripotent stem cells
• Reprogramming
• Pluripotency