Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) can undergo unlimited self-renewal and retain the pluripotency to differentiate into all cell types in the body, thus holding great promise as a renewable source of cells for human therapy. The mechanisms that maintain self-renewal of ESCs remain unclear. Here we show that Nanog, a transcription factor crucial for the self-renewal of ESCs, is phosphorylated at multip...

Embryonic stem (ES) cells undergo extended proliferation while remaining poised for multilineage differentiation. A unique network of transcription factors may characterize self-renewal and simultaneously suppress differentiation. We applied expression cloning in mouse ES cells to isolate a self-renewal determinant. Nanog is a divergent homeodomain protein that directs propagation of undifferen...

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) have been identified in a variety of cancer types, including prostate cancer. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the immunohistochemical expression of NANOG, octamer 4 (OCT4), cluster of differentiation 133 (CD133) and NESTIN, which are all CSC markers, and assess their function in prostate carcinogenesis. A total of 114 patients were referred to the Kanazawa ...

Bovine embryonic stem cells have potential for use in research, such as transgenic cattle generation and the study of developmental gene regulation. The Nanog may play a critical role in maintenance of the undifferentiated state of embryonic stem cells in the bovine, as in murine and human. Nevertheless, efforts to study the bovine Nanog for pluripotency-maintaining factors have been insufficie...

The expression of the transcription factors Oct4, Sox2, and Nanog is commonly associated with pluripotency of mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells. However, recent observations suggest that ES cell populations are heterogeneous with respect to the expression of Nanog and that individual ES cells reversibly change their Nanog expression level. Furthermore, it has been shown that cells exhibiting a lo...

Embryonic stem (ES) cell self-renewal is regulated by transcription factors, including Oct4, Sox2, and Nanog. A number of additional transcriptional regulators of ES cell self-renewal have recently been identified, including the orphan nuclear receptor estrogen-related receptor beta (Esrrb). However, the mode of action of Esrrb in ES cells is unknown. Here, using an Oct4 affinity screen, we ide...

Currently, no target molecules have been identified that enable the diagnosis of lung cancer with high sensitivity and specificity, especially in the early clinical stages of cancer. Recently, Nanog has been reported to play an important role in the self-renewal and regeneration of ES cells by maintaining these cells in the undifferentiated state and by accelerating cell proliferation. Here, we...

The NANOG homeobox gene plays a pivotal role in self-renewal and maintenance of pluripotency in human, mouse and other vertebrate embryonic stem cells, and in pluripotent cells of the blastocyst inner cell mass. There is a poorly studied and atypical homeobox locus close to the Nanog gene in some mammals which could conceivably be a cryptic paralogue of NANOG, even though the loci share only 20...

Reprogramming of a differentiated cell back to a naive pluripotent identity is thought to occur by several independent mechanisms. Two such mechanisms include NANOG and activated STAT3 (pSTAT3), known master regulators of naive pluripotency acquisition [1-5]. Here, we investigated the relationship between NANOG and pSTAT3 during the establishment and maintenance of naive pluripotency. Surprisin...

Nanog is required for the maintenance of cellular pluripotency during normal development and in cultured embryonic stem cells. A number of signaling pathways have been implicated in regulating Nanog gene expression in vitro. Using the chick model, we provide in vivo evidence for the involvement of the Activin/TGF-beta signaling pathway in regulating Nanog expression in epiblast cells during gas...