Research Perspective Volume 4, Issue 6 pp 393—401

Mitochondrial fusion by pharmacological manipulation impedes somatic cell reprogramming to pluripotency: New insight into the role of mitophagy in cell stemness

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Figure 3. DRP1 activity is required for the maintenance of iPSCs. Microphotographs show typical colony morphology of iPSCs with positive AP staining (red). In mdivi-1-treated cultures (5 days), normal undifferentiated phenotype with distinct iPSC colonies was not maintained. Remarkably, the colony morphology of the iPSCs was lost and differentiated cells with negative AP staining and some flattened fibroblast-like cells were formed after treatment with varying concentrations of the DRP1 inhibitor mdivi-1, as specified. Detection of AP activity, which is indicative of the non-differentiated state of iPSCs, was carried out using a commercial AP staining kit according to manufacturer's instructions.