scholarly journals TGFβ signalling is required to maintain pluripotency of human naïve pluripotent stem cells

eLife ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Osnato ◽  
Stephanie Brown ◽  
Christel Krueger ◽  
Simon Andrews ◽  
Amanda J Collier ◽  
...  

The signalling pathways that maintain primed human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) have been well characterised, revealing a critical role for TGFβ/Activin/Nodal signalling. In contrast, the signalling requirements of naive human pluripotency have not been fully established. Here, we demonstrate that TGFβ signalling is required to maintain naive hPSCs. The downstream effector proteins – SMAD2/3 – bind common sites in naive and primed hPSCs, including shared pluripotency genes. In naive hPSCs, SMAD2/3 additionally bind to active regulatory regions near to naive pluripotency genes. Inhibiting TGFβ signalling in naive hPSCs causes the downregulation of SMAD2/3-target genes and pluripotency exit. Single-cell analyses reveal that naive and primed hPSCs follow different transcriptional trajectories after inhibition of TGFβ signalling. Primed hPSCs differentiate into neuroectoderm cells, whereas naive hPSCs transition into trophectoderm. These results establish that there is a continuum for TGFβ pathway function in human pluripotency spanning a developmental window from naive to primed states.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Osnato ◽  
Stephanie Brown ◽  
Christel Krueger ◽  
Simon Andrews ◽  
Amanda J. Collier ◽  
...  

The signalling pathways that maintain primed human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) have been well characterised, revealing a critical role for TGFβ/Activin/Nodal signalling. In contrast, the signalling requirements of naïve human pluripotency have not been fully established. Here, we demonstrate that TGFβ signalling is required to maintain naïve hPSCs. The downstream effector proteins – SMAD2/3 – bind common sites in naïve and primed hPSCs, including shared pluripotency genes. In naïve hPSCs, SMAD2/3 additionally bind to active regulatory regions near to naïve pluripotency genes. Inhibiting TGFβ signalling in naïve hPSCs causes the downregulation of SMAD2/3–target genes and pluripotency exit. Single–cell analyses reveal that naïve and primed hPSCs follow different transcriptional trajectories after inhibition of TGFβ signalling. Primed hPSCs differentiate into neuroectoderm cells, whereas naïve hPSCs transition into trophectoderm. These results establish that there is a continuum for TGFβ pathway function in human pluripotency spanning a developmental window from naïve to primed states.


2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (34) ◽  
pp. e2108145118
Author(s):  
Anja Bufe ◽  
Ana García del Arco ◽  
Magdalena Hennecke ◽  
Anchel de Jaime-Soguero ◽  
Matthias Ostermaier ◽  
...  

Canonical Wnt signaling plays critical roles in development and tissue renewal by regulating β-catenin target genes. Recent evidence showed that β-catenin–independent Wnt signaling is also required for faithful execution of mitosis. However, the targets and specific functions of mitotic Wnt signaling still remain uncharacterized. Using phosphoproteomics, we identified that Wnt signaling regulates the microtubule depolymerase KIF2A during mitosis. We found that Dishevelled recruits KIF2A via its N-terminal and motor domains, which is further promoted upon LRP6 signalosome formation during cell division. We show that Wnt signaling modulates KIF2A interaction with PLK1, which is critical for KIF2A localization at the spindle. Accordingly, inhibition of basal Wnt signaling leads to chromosome misalignment in somatic cells and pluripotent stem cells. We propose that Wnt signaling monitors KIF2A activity at the spindle poles during mitosis to ensure timely chromosome alignment. Our findings highlight a function of Wnt signaling during cell division, which could have important implications for genome maintenance, notably in stem cells.


Author(s):  
Hao Xu ◽  
Liying Wu ◽  
Guojia Yuan ◽  
Xiaolu Liang ◽  
Xiaoguang Liu ◽  
...  

: Hepatic disease negatively impacts liver function and metabolism. Primary human hepatocytes are the gold standard for the prediction and successful treatment of liver disease. However, the sources of hepatocytes for drug toxicity testing and disease modeling are limited. To overcome this issue, pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) have emerged as an alternative strategy for liver disease therapy. Human PSCs, including embryonic stem cells (ESC) and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) can self-renew and give rise to all cells of the body. Human PSCs are attractive cell sources for regenerative medicine, tissue engineering, drug discovery, and developmental studies. Several recent studies have shown that mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) can also differentiate (or trans-differentiate) into hepatocytes. Differentiation of human PSCs and MSCs into functional hepatocyte-like cells (HLCs) opens new strategies to study genetic diseases, hepatotoxicity, infection of hepatotropic viruses, and analyze hepatic biology. Numerous in vitro and in vivo differentiation protocols have been established to obtain human PSCs/MSCs-derived HLCs and mimic their characteristics. It was recently discovered that microRNAs (miRNAs) play a critical role in controlling the ectopic expression of transcription factors and governing the hepatocyte differentiation of human PSCs and MSCs. In this review, we focused on the role of miRNAs in the differentiation of human PSCs and MSCs into hepatocytes.


2012 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 286
Author(s):  
A. Dinnyes ◽  
M. K. Pirity ◽  
E. Gocza ◽  
P. Osteil ◽  
N. Daniel ◽  
...  

Pluripotent stem cells have the capacity to divide indefinitely and to differentiate to all the somatic tissues. They can be genetically manipulated in vitro by knocking in and out genes, therefore they serve as an excellent tool for gene-function studies and for the generation of models for human diseases. Since 1981, when the first mouse embryonic stem cell (ESC) line was generated, several attempts have been made to generate pluripotent stem cells from other species as it would help us to understand the differences and similarities of signaling pathways involved in pluripotency and differentiation, and would reveal whether the fundamental mechanism controlling self-renewal of pluripotent cells is conserved among different species. This review gives an overlook of embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSCs) research in the rabbit which is one of the most relevant non-rodent species for animal models. To date, several lines of putative ESCs and iPSCs have been described in the rabbit. All expressed stem cell-associated markers and exhibited longevity and pluripotency in vitro, but none have been proven to exhibit full pluripotency in vivo. Moreover, similarly to several domestic species, markers used to characterize the putative ESCs are not fully adequate because studies in domestic species have revealed that they are not specific to the pluripotent inner cell mass. Future validation of rabbit pluripotent stem cells would benefit greatly from a reliable panel of molecular markers specific to pluripotent cells of the developing rabbit embryo. The status of isolation and characterization of the putative pluripotency genes in rabbit will be discussed. Using rabbit specific pluripotency genes we might be able to reprogram somatic cells and generate induced pluripotent stem cells more efficiently thus overcome some of the challenges towards harnessing the potential of this technology. This study was financed by EU FP7 (PartnErS, PIAP-GA-2008-218205; InduHeart, PEOPLE-IRG-2008-234390; InduVir, PEOPLE-IRG-2009-245808; RabPstem, PERG07-GA-2010-268422; PluriSys, HEALTH-2007-B-223485; AniStem, PIAP-GA-2011-286264), NKTH-OTKA-EU-7KP HUMAN-MB08-C-80-205; Plurabbit, OMFB-00130-00131/2010 ANR-NKTH/09-GENM-010-01.


Blood ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 118 (21) ◽  
pp. 57-57
Author(s):  
Satomi Tanaka ◽  
Goro Sashida ◽  
Satoru Miyagi ◽  
Koutaro Yokote ◽  
Chiaki Nakaseko ◽  
...  

Abstract Abstract 57 The polycomb group proteins function in gene silencing through histone modifications. They have been characterized as a general regulator of stem cells, but also play a critical role in cancer. EZH2 is a catalytic component of the polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2) and tri-methylates histone H3 at lysine 27 to transcriptionally repress the target genes. Although EZH2 is over-expressed in various cancers including hematological malignancies, it remains unknown how EZH2 contributes to the initiation and/or progression of acute myeloid leukemia (AML). To understand the role of EZH2 in AML, we transformed granulocyte macrophage progenitors (GMPs) from Cre-ERT;Ezh2+/+ and Cre-ERT;Ezh2flox/flox mice with the MLL-AF9 fusion gene. Then, Ezh2 was deleted by inducing nuclear translocation of Cre by adding tamoxifen to culture. We found that proliferation of Ezh2δ/δ transformed cells was severely compromised upon deletion of Ezh2 (Ezh2δ/δ) in liquid culture. They gave rise to a significantly reduced number of colonies in replating assays. Of note, while Ezh2+/+ cells formed compact colonies composed of immature myeloblasts, Ezh2δ/δ cells formed dispersed colonies composed of differentiated myeloid cells. We next transplanted Cre-ERT;Ezh2+/+ and Cre-ERT;Ezh2flox/flox GMPs transformed by MLL-AF9 into recipient mice. All the recipient mice developed AML by 3 weeks after transplantation. At 3 weeks after transplantation, we depleted Ezh2 by intraperitoneal injection of tamoxifen. Deletion of Ezh2 significantly prolonged the survival of the recipient mice (60 days vs. 76 days, p<0.0001), although all the mice eventually died of leukemia. Nonetheless, as was detected in vitro, Ezh2δ/δ AML cells in BM were apparently differentiated in morphology compared with the control. Ezh2δ/δ AML cells in BM gave rise to 10-fold fewer colonies in methylcellulose medium compared with Ezh2+/+ AML cells, and again showed an obvious tendency of differentiation. These observations imply that Ezh2 is critical for the progression of MLL-AF9 AML and maintains the immature state of AML cells. To elucidate the mechanism how Ezh2 promotes the progression of MLL-AF9-induced AML, we examined the genome-wide distribution of tri-methylation of histone H3 at lysine 27 (H3K27me3) by ChIP-sequencing and microarray-based expression analysis. ChIP-sequencing using Ezh2+/+ and Ezh2δ/δ BM AML cells identified 3525 and 89 genes exhibiting a ≧ 10-fold enrichment in H3K27me3 levels in Ezh2+/+ and Ezh2δ/δ AML cells, respectively, confirming a drastic reduction in the levels of global H3K27me3 in the absence of Ezh2. Microarray analysis using lineage marker (except for Mac1)−Sca-1−c-Kit+FcγRII/IIIhi BM AML cells revealed 252 upregulated and 154 downregulated genes (≧ 2-fold) in Ezh2δ/δ AML cells compared with Ezh2+/+ AML cells. Of interest, the absence of Ezh2 did not affect the transcriptional activation of the major target genes of MLL-AF9, including HoxA9 and Meis1. Because Ezh2 functions as transcriptional repressor, de-repressed genes could be direct targets of Ezh2. Based on these data, we are now engaged in further comprehensive analysis to narrow down the direct target genes of Ezh2 responsible for the progression of AML. Collectively, our findings suggest that Ezh2 is the major enzyme for H3K27me3 in AML and contributes to the progression of AML by regulating transcription a cohort of genes that are supposedly relevant to the self-renewal capacity and perturbed differentiation of AML stem cells. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


2012 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 1107-1113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nidhi Bhutani ◽  
Matthew N. Decker ◽  
Jennifer J. Brady ◽  
Rose T. Bussat ◽  
David M. Burns ◽  
...  

Blood ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 132 (Supplement 1) ◽  
pp. 1275-1275
Author(s):  
Stephane Flamant ◽  
Jean-Claude Chomel ◽  
Christophe Desterke ◽  
Olivier Feraud ◽  
Emilie Gobbo ◽  
...  

Abstract Although human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) can theoretically be differentiated into any cell type, their ability to generate hematopoietic cells shows a major variability from one cell line to another. The reasons of this variable differentiation potential, which is constant and reproducible in a given hPSC line, are not clearly established. In order to study this phenomenon, we comparatively studied 4 human embryonic stem cell lines (hESC) and 11 human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC) lines using transcriptome assays. These cell lines exhibited a significant variability to generate in vitro hematopoiesis as evaluated by day-16 embryoid body (EB) formation followed by clonogenic (CFC) assays. Four out of 11 iPSC lines (PB6, PB9, PB12.1, and PB14.3) were found to lack any hematopoietic differentiation ability whereas 7 cell lines showed variable hematopoietic potential. Among hESC lines, H9 and CL0 had low H1 and SA01 exhibited high hematopoietic potential using the above assays. Among hESC and hIPSC displaying hematopoietic potential, two sub-groups were further defined based on their hematopoietic CFC efficiency: a group of poor (generation of less than 100 CFC/105 cells, PB4 / PB10 /H9 /CL01), and high hematopoietic competency (more than 120 CFC/105 cells, PB3/ PB6.1 /PB7 /PB13 /PB17 /SA01/H1). Using global miRNome analysis performed at the pluripotency stage, the expression of 754 individual miRNAs was analyzed from 15 hPSC lines in order to explore a potential predictive marker between both sub-groups of pluripotent cells according to their hematopoietic potency. Using this approach, 27 miRNAs out of 754 appeared differentially expressed allowing the identification of a miRNA signature associated with hematopoietic-competency. The hematopoietic competency was associated with down-regulation of miR-206, miR-135b, miR-105, miR-492, miR-622 and upregulation of miR-520a, miR-296, miR-122, miR-515, miR-335. Amongst these, miR-206 harbored the most significant variation (0.04-Fold change). To explore the role of miRNA-206 in this phenomenon, we have generated a miR-206-eFGP-Puro lentiviral vector which was transfected in hESC line H1 followed by puromycin selection. As a control, H1 cell line was transfected with a Arabidopsis thaliana microRNA sequence (ath-miR-159a), which has no specific targets in mammalian cells. The correct expression of the transgenes were evaluated by flow cytometry (using GFP) and q-RT-PCR for miR-206 expression. The hematopoietic potential of H1 cell line and its miR-206-overexpressing counterpart was then tested using standard in vitro assays via d16-EB generation. We found that both CFC numbers and percentage of CD34+ were significantly lower in H1-mir-206-derived day-16 EB cells than in H1-ath- derived day-16 EB cells (p < 0.05). Thus, over-expression of miR-206 in this blood-competent hESC appeared to repress its hematopoietic potential at very early stage, since a similar lower CFC efficiency was observed in day-3 EB cells derived from miR-206 overexpressing H1 cell line. We then conducted an integrative bioinformatics analysis on miR-206 predicted target genes. To this end, 773 mRNA target transcripts of the broadly conserved (across vertebrates) miR-1-3p/206 family were identified in the TargetScan database and were integrated into the global transcriptomic analysis performed by microarray on day-16 EB cells. Using supervised ranking product analysis, 62 predicted gene targets of the miR-1-3p/206 family were found to be significantly up-regulated in hematopoietic-competent EB samples including the transcription factors RUNX1 and TAL1. Hierarchical unsupervised clustering, based on this subset of 62 predicted mir-206 target genes, fully discriminated hematopoietic-deficient from hematopoietic-competent cells. In conclusion, miRNA profiling performed at pluripotency stage could be useful to predict the ability to human iPSC to give rise to blood cell progenitors. This work emphasizes for the first time the critical role of the muscle-specific miR-206 in hematopoietic differentiation. Finally, these results suggest that genetic manipulation of hESC/iPSC could be used to enhance their hematopoietic potential and to design protocols for generation of hPSC-derived hematopoietic stem cells with long-term reconstitution ability. Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ramy Ragheb ◽  
Sarah Gharbi ◽  
Julie Cramard ◽  
Oluwaseun Ogundele ◽  
Susan Kloet ◽  
...  

AbstractDifferentiation of mammalian pluripotent cells involves large-scale changes in transcription and, among the molecules that orchestrate these changes, chromatin remodellers are essential to initiate, establish and maintain a new gene regulatory network. The NuRD complex is a highly conserved chromatin remodeller which fine-tunes gene expression in embryonic stem cells. While the function of NuRD in mouse pluripotent cells has been well defined, no study yet has defined NuRD function in human pluripotent cells. We investigated the structure and function of NuRD in human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs). Using immunoprecipitation followed by mass-spectrometry in hiPSCs and in naive or primed mouse pluripotent stem cells, we find that NuRD structure and biochemical interactors are generally conserved. Using RNA sequencing, we find that, whereas in mouse primed stem cells and in mouse naïve ES cells, NuRD is required for an appropriate level of transcriptional response to differentiation signals, hiPSCs require NuRD to initiate these responses. This difference indicates that mouse and human cells interpret and respond to induction of differentiation differently.Graphical AbstractNuRD acts like a conductor in an orchestra.A. In the presence of NuRD (pink blob figure, centre) differentiation occurs in an ordered fashion in both mouse (left) and human (right) ES cells. Gene expression changes in both cell types are tightly controlled with down-regulation of pluripotency genes and up-regulation of lineage appropriate genes. This is akin to a group of musicians producing musical notes in the right order and at the right amplitude to create a coherent piece of music. B. Loss of “the conductor” NuRD results in increased transcriptional noise in both systems, indicated here as a low-level blanket of sound in both systems. Consequences of MBD3/NuRD loss differs between human and mouse ES cells. In mouse ES cells, differentiation cues lead to some down-regulation of pluripotency genes and incomplete progression along a lineage appropriate pathway. This is like musicians who know that they should be making music but who lose their way without a conductor’s influence. In human iPS cells the background level of noise without NuRD results in a lack of order to gene expression changes in response to differentiation. The noise from these “musicians” would be truly awful.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralitsa R. Madsen ◽  
James Longden ◽  
Rachel G. Knox ◽  
Xavier Robin ◽  
Franziska Völlmy ◽  
...  

AbstractActivating PIK3CA mutations are known “drivers” of human cancer and developmental overgrowth syndromes. We recently demonstrated that the “hotspot” PIK3CAH1047R variant exerts unexpected allele dose-dependent effects on stemness in human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs). In the present study, we combine high-depth transcriptomics, total proteomics and reverse-phase protein arrays to reveal potentially disease-related alterations in heterozygous cells, and to assess the contribution of activated TGFβ signalling to the stemness phenotype of PIK3CAH1047R homozygous cells. We demonstrate signalling rewiring as a function of oncogenic PI3K signalling dose, and provide experimental evidence that self-sustained stemness is causally related to enhanced autocrine NODAL/TGFβ signalling. A significant transcriptomic signature of TGFβ pathway activation in PIK3CAH1047R heterozygous was observed but was modest and was not associated with the stemness phenotype seen in homozygous mutants. Notably, the stemness gene expression in PIK3CAH1047R homozygous iPSCs was reversed by pharmacological inhibition of TGFβ signalling, but not by pharmacological PI3Kα pathway inhibition. Altogether, this provides the first in-depth analysis of PI3K signalling in human pluripotent stem cells and directly links dose-dependent PI3K activation to developmental NODAL/TGFβ signalling.


2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (21) ◽  
pp. 7831
Author(s):  
Ayaka Edo ◽  
Sunao Sugita ◽  
Yoko Futatsugi ◽  
Junki Sho ◽  
Akishi Onishi ◽  
...  

Retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) are impaired in patients such as those with glaucoma and optic neuritis, resulting in permanent vision loss. To restore visual function, development of RGC transplantation therapy is now underway. Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are an important source of RGCs for human allogeneic transplantation. We therefore analyzed the immunological characteristics of iPSC-derived RGCs (iPSC-RGCs) to evaluate the possibility of rejection after RGC transplantation. We first assessed the expression of human leukocyte antigen (HLA) molecules on iPSC-RGCs using immunostaining, and then evaluated the effects of iPSC-RGCs to activate lymphocytes using the mixed lymphocyte reaction (MLR) and iPSC-RGC co-cultures. We observed low expression of HLA class I and no expression of HLA class II molecules on iPSC-RGCs. We also found that iPSC-RGCs strongly suppressed various inflammatory immune cells including activated T-cells in the MLR assay and that transforming growth factor-β2 produced by iPSC-RGCs played a critical role in suppression of inflammatory cells in vitro. Our data suggest that iPSC-RGCs have low immunogenicity, and immunosuppressive capacity on lymphocytes. Our study will contribute to predicting immune attacks after RGC transplantation.


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