Establishment of a primed pluripotent epiblast stem cell in FGF4-based conditions

Sci Rep. 2014 Dec 17:4:7477. doi: 10.1038/srep07477.

Abstract

Several mouse pluripotent stem cell types have been established either from mouse blastocysts and epiblasts. Among these, embryonic stem cells (ESCs) are considered to represent a "naïve", epiblast stem cells (EpiSCs) a "primed" pluripotent state. Although EpiSCs form derivatives of all three germ layers during in vitro differentiation, they rarely incorporate into the inner cell mass of blastocysts and rarely contribute to chimera formation following blastocyst injection. Here we successfully established homogeneous population of EpiSC lines with efficient chimera-forming capability using a medium containing fibroblast growth factor (FGF)-4. The expression levels of Rex1 and Nanog was very low although Oct4 level is comparable to ESCs. EpiSCs also expressed higher levels of epiblast markers, such as Cer1, Eomes, Fgf5, Sox17, and T, and further showed complete DNA methylation of Stella and Dppa5 promoters. However, the EpiSCs were clustered separately from E3 and T9 EpiSC lines and showed a completely different global gene expression pattern to ESCs. Furthermore, the EpiSCs were able to differentiate into all three germ layers in vitro and efficiently formed teratomas and chimeric embryos (21.4%) without germ-line contribution.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Blastocyst / cytology
  • Cell Differentiation / genetics
  • Cells, Cultured
  • Chimera / genetics
  • Chimera / physiology
  • DNA Methylation / genetics
  • Embryonic Stem Cells / cytology
  • Female
  • Fibroblast Growth Factor 4 / genetics*
  • Germ Layers / cytology*
  • Homeodomain Proteins / genetics
  • Mice
  • Mice, Inbred C57BL
  • Nanog Homeobox Protein
  • Pluripotent Stem Cells / cytology*
  • Promoter Regions, Genetic / genetics
  • Signal Transduction / genetics
  • Transcription Factors / genetics

Substances

  • Fgf4 protein, mouse
  • Fibroblast Growth Factor 4
  • Homeodomain Proteins
  • Nanog Homeobox Protein
  • Nanog protein, mouse
  • Rex-1 protein, mouse
  • Transcription Factors