A nonviral minicircle vector for deriving human iPS cells

Due to the risk of insertional mutagenesis, viral transduction has been increasingly replaced by non-viral methods to generate induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. One technique that has not yet been explored is the use of “minicircle” DNA, a novel compact vector that is free of bacterial DNA and capable of persistent high level expression in cells. Here, we report the use of a single minicircle vector to generate transgene-free iPS cells from adult human cells.