Find and replace: editing human genome in pluripotent stem cells

Genetic manipulation of human pluripotent stem cells(hPSCs)provides a powerful tool for modeling diseases and developing future medicine.Recently a number of independent genome-editing techniques were developed,including plasmid,bacterial artificial chromosome,adeno-associated virus vector,zinc finger nuclease,transcription activator-like effecter nuclease,and helper-dependent adenoviral vector.Gene editing has been successfully employed in different aspects of stem cell research such as gene correction,mutation knock-in,and establishment of reporter cell lines(Raya et al.,2009;Howden et al.,2011;Li et al.,2011;Liu et al.,2011b;Papapetrou et al.,2011;Sebastiano et al.,2011;Soldner et al.,2011;Zou et al.,2011a).These techniques combined with the utility of hPSCs will significantly influence the area of regenerative medicine.