Cellular Metabolism and Induced Pluripotency

The discovery of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) a decade ago, which we are celebrating in this issue of Cell, represents a landmark discovery in biomedical research. Together with somatic cell nuclear transfer, iPSC generation reveals the remarkable plasticity associated with differentiated cells and provides an unprecedented means for modeling diseases using patient samples. In addition to transcriptional and epigenetic remodeling, cellular reprogramming to pluripotency is also accompanied by a rewiring of metabolic pathways, which ultimately leads to changes in cell identities.