Minimal-change disease secondary to etanercept.

Etanercept is a soluble tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFα) receptor which is widely used in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis and other autoimmune inflammatory disorders. It is known for its relative lack of nephrotoxicity; however, there are reports on the development of nephrotic syndrome associated with the treatment with TNFα antagonists. Here, we describe a patient with psoriasis who developed biopsy-proven minimal-change disease (MCD) shortly after initiating etanercept.

Production of embryonic and fetal-like red blood cells from human induced pluripotent stem cells.

We have previously shown that human embryonic stem cells can be differentiated into embryonic and fetal type of red blood cells that sequentially express three types of hemoglobins recapitulating early human erythropoiesis. We report here that we have produced iPS from three somatic cell types: adult skin fibroblasts as well as embryonic and fetal mesenchymal stem cells. We show that regardless of the age of the donor cells, the iPS produced are fully reprogrammed into a pluripotent state that is undistinguishable from that of hESCs by low and high-throughput expression and detailed analysis of globin expression patterns by HPLC.