EPIGENETIC APPROACHES EXPRESS POTENTIAL IN GENERATING EMBRYONIC STEM CELL REPLACEMENTS: A LITERATURE REVIEW

Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) have significant potential for curing serious diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's due to their ability to differentiate into most cell types in the body. However, the extraction of ESCs involves the destruction of embryos, raising moral and ethical concerns. Consequently, many studies have explored the possibility of creating ESC replacements. This literature review examines multiple publications to investigate the potential of epigenetic approaches in inducing stem cells that could replace human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) in biomedical research. Findings indicate that a combination of the demethylation enzyme TET dioxygenase, the CRISPR-dCas9 binding system, and directional guide single-guide RNA (sgRNA) can theoretically revert somatic stem cells to an hESC-like state through DNA demethylation, provided that all key regulators of genetic expression in hESCs are identified.