The four transcription factors Oct4, Sox2, Klf4 and c-Myc have been used for making induced pluripotent stem cells. Many efforts have focused on reducing the number of transcription factors, especially c-Myc and Klf4 known as oncogene, for making induced pluripotent stem cells. Recently it have been demonstrated that Oct4 and Sox2 are able to reprogram human fibroblasts or cord blood cells to induced pluripotent stem cells and Oct4 has the ability to reprogram mouse and human neural stem cell to induced pluripotent stem cells. These researches imply cell types for reprogramming experiments have great influence on selection of reprogramming factors. Here we report that pig kidney cortex fibroblasts need only c-Myc factor when they are used for making induced pluripotent stem cells. We used two vector system including drug-inducible vector system and constitutive expression vector system. The two systems generate induced pluripotent stem cells from pig kidney fibroblasts successfully. These one-factor induced pluripotent stem cells are not only similar but also different to pig embryonic stem-like cells. These two one-factor induced pluripotent stem cell lines can express pluripotency related genes and be differentiated into all three germ layers in vitro. However, these two cell lines can be sub-cultured as a single cell by trypsin. Our results support that single factor, c-Myc, is sufficient to converting pig kidney cortex fibroblasts into induced pluripotent stem cells.

• Dongchan Son(Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, Animal Biotechnology Major, and Research Institute of Agriculture and Life Science, Seoul National University)
• Kwang-Hwan Choi(Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, Animal Biotechnology Major, and Research Institute of Agriculture and Life Science, Seoul National University)
• Dong-Kyung Lee(Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, Animal Biotechnology Major, and Research Institute of Agriculture and Life Science, Seoul National University)
• Jong-Nam Oh(Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, Animal Biotechnology Major, and Research Institute of Agriculture and Life Science, Seoul National University)
• Seung-Hun Kim(Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, Animal Biotechnology Major, and Research Institute of Agriculture and Life Science, Seoul National University)
• Tae-Young Park(Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, Animal Biotechnology Major, and Research Institute of Agriculture and Life Science, Seoul National University)
• Chang-Kyu Lee(Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, Animal Biotechnology Major, and Research Institute of Agriculture and Life Science, Seoul National University)