While most of the reprogramming experiments today are still based on the viral transduction of the same four Yamanaka transcription factors SOX2, OCT4, KLF4, and cMYC (Takahashi, 2006), alternative techniques have been developed that improve the concept in various ways (Okita et al., 2008; Zhou et al., 2009).
Although direct reprogramming has made it possible to study the interplay of the networks regulating pluripotency in a defined environment, it is still not understood how the transition happens in detail.
However, it has become clear that the reprogramming potential is not limited to specific cells in a culture, but rather that essentially every cell can be reprogrammed given enough time and the appropriate method (Hanna et al., 2009).
A high proliferation rate seems to be beneficial to the process of overcoming the barriers in reprogramming (Hong et al., 2009; Kawamura et al., 2009; Marión et al., 2009).
Moreover, efficiency could be improved by the addition of small molecules (Wang and Adjaye, 2010), some of which are also capable of replacing KLF4 and cMYC or even SOX2 (Ichida et al., 2009) in the process. Most of these discovered molecules act on the epigenetic modifications in the cells that fix them in their current developmental state.