Derivation of human embryonic stem cell lines from parthenogenetic blastocysts.

Parthenogenesis is one of the main, and most useful, methods to derive embryonic stem cells (ESCs), which may be an important source of histocompatible cells and tissues for cell therapy. Here we describe the derivation and characterization of two ESC lines (hPES-1 and hPES-2) from in vitro developed blastocysts following parthenogenetic activation of human oocytes. Typical ESC morphology was seen, and the expression of ESC markers was as expected for alkaline phosphatase, octamer-binding transcription factor 4, stage-specific embryonic antigen 3, stage-specific embryonic antigen 4, TRA-1-60, and TRA-1-81, and there was absence of expression of negative markers such as stage-specific embryonic antigen 1.