In this issue of Cell Stem Cell, Efroni et al. (2008) use tiling microarrays to reveal genome-wide hypertranscription in mouse embryonic stem cells (ESCs), including expression of normally silent, noncoding regions. Hypertranscription may reflect the unusual "open" structure of ESC chromatin.

Glucose-coated polymeric beads have been prepared and applied to delivery of a model protein (enhanced green fluorescent protein) into mouse embryonic stem cells as well as Hela cells.

A chemically defined thermoresponsive hydrogel, poly(AEtMA-Cl-co-DEAEA) cross-linked with N,N'-methylenebisacrylamide, which allows enzyme-free passaging, was used as a substrate to culture murine embryonic stem cells (mESCs) under defined and undefined conditions. Analysis of 14 stem cell markers showed that the mESCs remained in a "naïve" state of pluripotency with differentiation potential t...

Myelination in the central nervous system is the process by which oligodendrocytes form myelin sheaths around the axons of neurons. Myelination enables neurons to transmit information more quickly and more efficiently and allows for more complex brain functions; yet, remarkably, the underlying mechanism by which myelination occurs is still not fully understood. A reliable in vitro assay is esse...

Introduction: Adult stem cells are the group of cells which conserve their nature in tissues and organs among other cells. In recent years, the researchers reported the existence of stem cells on the Bulge of hair follicles near to the smooth muscle. It is possible to differentiate these stem cells to neural cells by induction of Shh, FGF, and RA factors. Because of existence of these factors ...

Differentiation is an epigenetic process which is installed by changes of transcriptional programs over successive cellular divisions. A number of studies have reported the effects of biochemical modifications of chromatin (DNA and chromatin proteins) on the regulation of transcription. Although, these studies are able to explain how transcription of a given gene is regulated (toward activation...

objective(s): sertoli cells support in vivo germ cell production; but, its exact mechanism has not been well understood. the present study was designed to analyze the effect of sertoli cells in differentiation of mouse embryonic stem cells (mescs) to germ cells.   materials and methods: a fusion construct composed of a stra8 gene promoter and the coding region of enhanced green fluorescence pro...

Parent-specific differentially methylated regions (DMRs) are established during gametogenesis and regulate parent-specific expression of imprinted genes. Monoallelic expression of imprinted genes is essential for development, suggesting that imprints are faithfully maintained in embryos and adults. To test this hypothesis, we targeted a reporter for genomic methylation to the imprinted Dlk1-Dio...

MicroRNAs act posttranscriptionally to suppress multiple target genes within a cell population. To what extent this multi-target suppression occurs in individual cells and how it impacts transcriptional heterogeneity and gene co-expression remains unknown. Here we used single-cell sequencing combined with introduction of individual microRNAs. miR-294 and let-7c were introduced into otherwise mi...