Human Pluripotent Stem Cells

Differentiation Guide from Qkine

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are pluripotent stem cell that can be generated directly from somatic cells. Pluripotent stem cells hold high interest in the field of regenerative medicine: Due to their ability to propagate indefinitely, and to give rise to every other cell type in the body, they are promosing for replacement of damaged cells or those lost to diseases, such as diabetes, spinal cord injury, and neurodegenerative disorders.

Our partner Qkine manufactures high-purity, animal-free growth factors, cytokines and other complex proteins for maintanance and directed differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells (hPSC). Qkine combines proprietary production processes with protein engineering technology to tackle fundamental biological and scale-up challenges for the fast-growing stem cell, organoid, regenerative medicine and cultured meat sectors.

hPSC directed differentiation

Pluripotent stem cells have infinite capacity; they can self-renew indefinitely and differentiate to any cell in the body, given the right conditions. Directed differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) towards specific cell types, through defined culture conditions, provides significant promise in the field of regenerative medicine, drug discovery, and disease modelling. This overview depicts the growth factors required to derive different cell types from hPSCs, with all methods corresponding to published work on human cells:

Download Qkine's hPSC Differentiation Guide (pdf)

Topselling products for hPSC maintanance and differentiation:

Art. No.	Product Name	Product Description
Qk001	Activin A	TGFβ family growth factor used for maintenance and differentiation of iPSCs and ESCs
Qk006	R-spondin1	The world's only animal free R-spondin 1, used to potentiate Wnt signally in organoid system cultures
Qk010	TGF-beta-1 PLUS	First entirely animal-free recombinant human TGF-β1 protein, used in E8-style stem cell media
Qk038	BMP-4	Key regulator of embryogenesis, supporting the differentiation of iPSCs and ESCs