NSC 14613 is a pluripotent cell-specific inhibitor (PluriSIn) that selectively eliminates human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) leaving a large array of progenitor and differentiated cells unaffected. Among 15 identified PluriSIns, NSC 14613 (also known as PluriSIn #1) is a derivative of N-acyl phenylhydrazine that shares a common structure moiety, phenylhydrazine (Ph-N[H,C]-NH) with 9 other PluriSIns. NSC 14613 is also an inhibitor of stearoyl-coA desaturase (SCD1) that inhibits the activity of SCD1 in hPSCs causing the imbalance between substrates and products and subsequently resulting in the accumulation of palmitate and stearate and the deprivation of oleate. Study results have suggested that NSC 14613 is able to induce ER stress, protein synthesis attenuation and apoptosis in hPSCs and can be used to prevent teratoma formation from tumorigenic undifferentiated cells.

Reference

Ben-David U, Gan QF, Golan-Lev T, Arora P, Yanuka O, Oren YS, Leikin-Frenkel A, Graf M, Garippa R, Boehringer M, Gromo G, Benvenisty N. Selective elimination of human pluripotent stem cells by an oleate synthesis inhibitor discovered in a high-throughput screen. Cell Stem Cell. 2013 Feb 7;12(2):167-79