Stemcell, 72012, 5-Azacytidine

5-Azacytidine is an analog of the nucleoside cytidine which can be incorporated into DNA and RNA. 5-Azacytidine acts as an epigenetic modifier by incorporating into DNA where it irreversibly binds to DNA methyltransferases, thus inhibiting their activity.

REPROGRAMMING

· Increases reprogramming efficiency of mouse fibroblasts to induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells by inducing full reprogramming of partially reprogrammed cells (Mikkelsen et al.).

· Resets epigenetic memory in mouse iPS cells, in combination with Trichostatin A (Kim et al.).

DIFFERENTIATION

· Enhances differentiation to cardiomyocytes from human embryonic stem cells (Yoon et al.).

CANCER RESEARCH

· Wide range of anti-metabolic activities when tested against cultured cancer cells and an effective chemotherapeutic agent for acute myelogenous leukemia