Delineating the signaling pathways that underlie ESC pluripotency is paramount for development of ESC applications in both the research and clinical settings. In culture pluripotency is maintained by leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) stimulation of two separate signaling axes: Stat3/Klf4/Sox2 and PI3K/Tbx3/Nanog, which converge in the regulation of Oct4 expression. However, LIF signaling is not ...

Coactivator-associated arginine methyltransferase 1 (CARM1) is included in the protein arginine methyltransferase (PRMT) family, which methylates histone arginine residues through posttranslational modification. It has been proposed that CARM1 may up-regulate the expression of pluripotency-related genes through the alteration of the chromatin structure. Mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs) are pl...

Low efficiency of somatic cell reprogramming and heterogeneity among human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) demand extensive characterization of isolated clones before their use in downstream applications. By monitoring human fibroblasts undergoing reprogramming for their morphological changes and expression of fibroblast (CD13), pluripotency markers (SSEA-4 and TRA-1-60) and a retrovira...

Pluripotent stem cells are characterised by continuous self-renewal while maintaining the potential to differentiate into cells of all three germ layers. Regulatory networks of maintaining pluripotency have been described in great detail and, similarly, there is great knowledge on key players that regulate their differentiation. Interestingly, pluripotency has various shades with distinct devel...

The property of pluripotency confers the capacity for differentiation into a large number of cell types including extra-embryonic, somatic and germinal cells. During normal development, pluripotency is acquired by the cells of the early embryo, which shortly thereafter undergo differentiation, whereas embryonic stem cells (ESCs) uniquely maintain pluripotency while undergoing extensive in vitro...

Introduction: One of the vital enzymes during spermatogenesis, which is one of the pluripotency factors of stem cells and contributes to maintaining their pluripotency is alkaline phosphatase. ZBTB16 and ZFP proteins are critical elements in stem cells which are expressed in pluripotent stem cells and maintain their pluripotency due to their role in messaging pathways. Material & Methods: The ...

Pluripotency in human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) is regulated by three transcription factors-OCT3/4, SOX2, and NANOG. To fully exploit the therapeutic potential of these cells it is essential to have a good mechanistic understanding of the maintenance of self-renewal and pluripotency. In this study, we demonstrate a powerful systems biology approach ...

BACKGROUND Pluripotent embryonic stem cells grown under standard conditions (ESC) have a markedly glycolytic profile, which is shared with many different types of cancer cells. Thus, some therapeutic strategies suggest that pharmacologically shifting cancer cells towards an oxidative phenotype, using glycolysis inhibitors, may reduce cancer aggressiveness. Given the metabolic parallels between ...

The generation of induced pluripotent stem cells from adult somatic cells by ectopic expression of key transcription factors holds significant medical promise. However, current techniques for inducing pluripotency rely on viral infection and are therefore not, at present, viable within a clinical setting. Thus, there is now a need to better understand the molecular basis of stem cell pluripoten...

PSCs (pluripotent stem cells) possess two key properties that have made them the focus of global research efforts in regenerative medicine: they have unlimited expansion potential under conditions which favour their preservation as PSCs and they have the ability to generate all somatic cell types upon differentiation (pluripotency). Conditions have been defined in vitro in which pluripotency is...