Standardization of human stem cell pluripotency using bioinformatics

The study of cell differentiation, embryonic development, and personalized regenerative medicine are all possible through the use of human stem cells. The propensity for these cells to differentiate into all three germ layers of the body with the potential to generate any cell type opens a number of promising avenues for studying human development and disease. One major hurdle to the development of high-throughput production of human stem cells for use in regenerative medicine has been standardization of pluripotency assays. In this review we discuss technologies currently being deployed to produce standardized, high-quality stem cells that can be scaled for high-throughput derivation and screening in regenerative medicine applications. We focus on assays for pluripotency using bioinformatics and gene expression profiling. We review a number of approaches that promise to improve unbiased prediction of utility of both human induced pluripotent stem cells and embryonic stem cells.