Open conformation chromatin and pluripotency.

Pluripotency, the ability of a cell to give rise to all of the cells of an organism, is a fascinating and mysterious characteristic of embryonic stem (ES) cells. Recent extensive molecular studies of mouse ES cells have revealed the roles played by transcription factor networks and epigenetic processes in the maintenance of ES cell pluripotency (Niwa 2007). However, no direct evidence to connect these two mechanisms had been reported until in the previous issue of Genes & Development, in which Loh et al. (2007) presented new evidence concerning this missing link.