Reprogramming of α-thalassemia fibroblasts and characterization of iPSCs. (A) Phase contrast micrographs illustrating the morphology of fibroblasts (left panel) and iPSCs (middle panel). iPSCs had normal karyotype in culture (right panel). (B) FACS analysis showing that iPSCs express TRA-1-60, TRA-1-80, SSEA-4, and SSEA-3, 4 typical hESCs and iPSCs surface markers. (C) PCR analysis showing loss of the episomal vectors used to reprogram patient-specific fibroblasts after 8 passages in culture. ACTB are control primers that detect a small genomic DNA fragment of the β-actin gene.