Direct lineage conversion of terminally differentiated hepatocytes to functional neurons

Mouse fibroblasts and hepatocyte can be directly reprogrammed to induced neuronal (iN) cells. Genome-wide expression analysis showed that Hep-iN cells had not only induced a neuronal transcriptional program but also effectively silenced the hepatocyte transcriptome suggesting that the reprogramming factors lead to a binary lineage switch decision rather than an induction of hybrid phenotypes. Similarly, the fibroblast-specific transcriptional program was downregulated in fibroblast-derived iN cells. BAM = infection with the 3 factors (Ascl1 - Brn2 - Myt1l) . ATT = Hepatocytes_derived_induced_neurons derived from TauGFP-AlbCre-R26-lsl-tomato Total RNA obtained from MEFs subjected to 21 days lentivirus infection for neuronal induction compared to uninfected MEFs.