Generation of Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells from Endoderm Origin Cells

Human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells have been derived mostly from cells originating from �mesoderm and in a few cases from ectoderm. This has prevented comprehensive comparative investigations of the quality of human iPS cells of different origins. We have recently reported for the first time the reprogramming of human endoderm-derived cells (i.e., primary hepatocytes) to iPS cells. In this chapter, we describe the methods for generating and characterizing iPS cells from human primary hepatocytes.