With the partial pressure of oxygen in common lab incubators consistently higher than that in the brain [47], it is almost tempting to hypothesize that lowering oxygen tension would imitate low oxygen milieus in the brain enhancing iN cell reprogramming. Similar to the observations made for iPS reprogramming [42], our lab recently found beneficial effects on iN cell reprogramming by acute reduction of environmental oxygen [48]. The quality and maturity of resulting iN cells were comparable to standard oxygen levels as determined by electrophysiological parameters. Overall, we observed an average 2.5-fold increase in the generation of iN cells from human fibroblasts.
