Primary mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) are typically derived from E13.5 mouse embryos. They are relatively easy to culture and maintain and have robust proliferation rate. MEFs can be powerful tools to study gene functions especially when comparison experiments between wild-type and knockout cells from the same liter are required. Meanwhile, MEFs have also been used as feeder cells to support growth of embryonic stem cells from a variety of species1. More recently, MEFs from reporter transgenic mice were used for assessing gene function during reprogramming of fibroblasts to induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) 2.
PrimCells is proud to isolate and provide the primary cultures of embryonic fibroblasts from transgenic mice carrying IRES-GFP gene in their endogenous Pou5f1 (Oct4) locus. When these cells are fully reprogrammed, iPSCs will become GFP+, which could be a powerful tool for chemical screening or gene functional studies in order to develop more efficient reprogramming technology.