Gastrulation is characterized by the differentiation of pluripotent cells to generate the germ layers, morphogenetic movements, a decrease in cell proliferation and establishment of the embryonic axes. We show by Cdx1 knock-down that it functions as a regulator of the onset of gastrulation in agreement with its early expression. In a microarray-based approach to search for Cdx1 targets, we iden...

Cell-cultured protein technology has become increasingly attractive due to its sustainability and climate benefits. The aim of this study is determine the nutritional quality human-induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC)-cultured proteins in an advanced 3D peptide hydrogel system for highly efficient production cell-cultured proteins. Our previous demonstrated a PGmatrix embedded culture long-ter...

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are generated through a gradual process in which somatic cells undergo a number of stochastic events. In this study, we examined whether two different doxycycline-inducible iPSCs, slow-forming 4F2A-iPSCs and fast-forming NGFP-iPSCs, have equivalent levels of pluripotency. Multiplex reverse-transcriptase PCR generated gene expression profiles (GEPs) of 13 p...

Primordial germ cells (PGCs) are lineage-restricted unipotent cells that can dedifferentiate into pluripotent embryonic germ cells (EGCs). Here we performed whole-transcriptome analysis during the conversion of PGCs into EGCs, a process by which cells acquire pluripotency. To examine the molecular mechanism underlying this conversion, we focused on Blimp-1 and Akt, which are involved in PGC spe...

Early vertebrate embryos possess cells with the potential to generate all embryonic cell types. While this pluripotency is progressively lost as cells become lineage restricted, Neural Crest cells retain broad developmental potential. Here, we provide novel insights into signals essential for both pluripotency and neural crest formation in Xenopus. We show that FGF signaling controls a subset o...

The generation of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) provides a novel method to facilitate investigations into the mechanisms that control stem cell pluripotency and self-renewal. Myc has previously been shown to be critical for murine embryonic stem cell (mESC) maintenance, while also enhancing directed reprogramming of fibroblasts by effecting widespread changes in gene expression. Despit...

Pluripotent stem cells are exhibited similarly in the morphology, gene expression, growth properties, and epigenetic modification with embryonic stem cells (ESCs). However, it is still controversial that the pluripotency of induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) is much inferior to ESC, and the differentiation capacity of iPSC and ESC can also be separated by transcriptome and epigenetics. miRNAs...

Transcription factor Foxm1 plays a critical role during embryonic development and its expression is repressed during retinoic acid (RA)-induced differentiation of pluripotent P19 embryonal carcinoma cells at the early stage, correlated with downregulation of expression of pluripotency markers. To study whether Foxm1 participates in the maintenance of pluripotency of stem cells, we knock down Fo...

Alternative RNA splicing (AS) regulates proteome diversity, including isoform-specific expression of several pluripotency genes. Here, we integrated global gene expression and proteomic analyses and identified a molecular signature suggesting a central role for AS in maintaining human pluripotent stem cell (hPSC) self-renewal. We demonstrate that the splicing factor SFRS2 is an OCT4 target gene...

The pluripotent genome is characterized by unique epigenetic features and a decondensed chromatin conformation. However, the relationship between epigenetic regulation and pluripotency is not altogether clear. Here, using an enhanced MEF/ESC fusion protocol, we compared the reprogramming potency and histone modifications of different embryonic stem cell (ESC) lines (R1, J1, E14, C57BL/6) and fo...