Modeling of osteosarcoma with induced pluripotent stem cells.

Osteosarcoma is the most common type of bone cancer. Osteosarcoma is commonly associated with TP53 inactivation (around 95% of cases) and RB1 inactivation (around 28% of cases). With the discovery of reprogramming factors to induce pluripotency even in terminally differentiated cells, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) have emerged as a promising disease model. iPSC-based disease modeling uniquely recapitulates disease phenotypes and can support discoveries into disease etiology and is used extensively today to study a variety of diseases, including cancers. This paper focuses on iPSC-based modeling of Li-Fraumeni syndrome (LFS), an autosomal dominant disorder commonly associated with TP53 mutation and high osteosarcoma incidence. As iPSCs are increasingly utilized as a platform for cancer modeling, the experimental approaches that we discuss here may serve as a guide for future studies.