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World J Stem Cells. Apr 26, 2015; 7(3): 649-656
Published online Apr 26, 2015. doi: 10.4252/wjsc.v7.i3.649
Searching for naïve human pluripotent stem cells
Simone Aparecida Siqueira Fonseca, Roberta Montero Costas, Lygia Veiga Pereira
Simone Aparecida Siqueira Fonseca, Roberta Montero Costas, Lygia Veiga Pereira, National Laboratory of Embryonic Stem Cell, Department of Genetics and Evolutionary Biology, University of São Paulo, São Paulo 05508-090, Brazil
Author contributions: Fonseca SAS, Costas RM and Pereira LV reviewed the literature and wrote the manuscript; Costas RM made the figures; Pereira LV coordinated the work.
Supported by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico/Departamento de Ciência e Tecnologia do Ministério da Saúde (CNPq/MS/DECIT), Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (BNDES) and Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos (FINEP); the fellowship from CNPq (Costas RM); and a fellowship from Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (Fonseca SAS).
Conflict-of-interest: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Lygia Veiga Pereira, National Laboratory of Embryonic Stem Cell, Department of Genetics and Evolutionary Biology, University of São Paulo, São Paulo 05508-090, Brazil. lpereira@usp.br
Telephone: +55-11-30917476 Fax: +55-11-30917553
Received: November 29, 2014
Peer-review started: November 29, 2014
First decision: December 12, 2014
Revised: December 18, 2014
Accepted: January 18, 2015
Article in press: January 20, 2015
Published online: April 26, 2015
Processing time: 145 Days and 10.9 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Mouse embryonic stem cells (ESCs) are the in vitro equivalent of the epiblast of preimplantation embryos. Human ESCs on the other hand, although also pluripotent, appear to be in a more advanced developmental stage than their murine counterpart. Recently, several reports described culture conditions able to support mouse ESC-like human ESCs, called naïve human ESCs. Here we will review the search for human naïve ESCs, discussing their biological and practical relevance.