Dual specificity phosphatase 7 drives the formation of cardiac mesoderm in mouse embryonic stem cells

PLoS One. 2022 Oct 13;17(10):e0275860. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0275860. eCollection 2022.

Abstract

Dual specificity phosphatase 7 (DUSP7) is a protein belonging to a broad group of phosphatases that can dephosphorylate phosphoserine/phosphothreonine as well as phosphotyrosine residues within the same substrate. DUSP7 has been linked to the negative regulation of mitogen activated protein kinases (MAPK), and in particular to the regulation of extracellular signal-regulated kinases 1 and 2 (ERK1/2). MAPKs play an important role in embryonic development, where their duration, magnitude, and spatiotemporal activity must be strictly controlled by other proteins, among others by DUSPs. In this study, we focused on the effect of DUSP7 depletion on the in vitro differentiation of mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells. We showed that even though DUSP7 knock-out ES cells do retain some of their basic characteristics, when it comes to differentiation, they preferentially differentiate towards neural cells, while the formation of early cardiac mesoderm is repressed. Therefore, our data indicate that DUSP7 is necessary for the correct formation of neuroectoderm and cardiac mesoderm during the in vitro differentiation of ES cells.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Dual Specificity Phosphatase 1 / metabolism
  • Dual-Specificity Phosphatases / genetics
  • Dual-Specificity Phosphatases / metabolism*
  • Mesoderm / metabolism
  • Mice
  • Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinases / metabolism
  • Mouse Embryonic Stem Cells* / metabolism
  • Phosphoserine
  • Phosphothreonine
  • Phosphotyrosine

Substances

  • Phosphothreonine
  • Phosphoserine
  • Phosphotyrosine
  • Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinases
  • Dual Specificity Phosphatase 1
  • Dual-Specificity Phosphatases
  • Dusp7 protein, mouse

Grants and funding

This research was supported by the Faculty of Science of Masaryk University (MUNI/A/1145/2017) and by the Czech Science Foundation (Project 18-18235S); SS was supported by a grant from the Czech Science Foundation (Project 19-16861S). https://www.muni.cz/en/about-us/organizational-structure/faculty-of-sciencehttps://gacr.cz/en/ The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.