From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Fri May 30 2003 - 12:16:58 MDT
On Fri, 30 May 2003, Brett Paatsch wrote:
> Extropes, meet the Nanog gene (and protein) named after the
> mythic Celtic land of the ever-young, Tir nan Og.
Here is the abstract for this (it doesn't seem to be in PubMed
yet but Cell has the information).
Robert
> Copyyright ©2003 Cell Press.
> Cell, Vol 113, 643-655, 30 May 2003
>
> Functional Expression Cloning of Nanog, a Pluripotency Sustaining Factor
> in Embryonic Stem Cells Ian Chambers, Douglas Colby, Morag Robertson,
> Jennifer Nichols, Sonia Lee, Susan Tweedie, and Austin Smith
>
> Institute for Stem Cell Research, University of Edinburgh, King's
> Buildings, West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JQ, Scotland, United Kingdom
>
>
> 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 undifferentiated ES
> cells. Nanog mRNA is present in pluripotent mouse and human cell lines,
> and absent from differentiated cells. In preimplantation embryos, Nanog
> is restricted to founder cells from which ES cells can be derived.
> Endogenous Nanog acts in parallel with cytokine stimulation of Stat3 to
> drive ES cell self-renewal. Elevated Nanog expression from transgene
> constructs is sufficient for clonal expansion of ES cells, bypassing
> Stat3 and maintaining Oct4 levels. Cytokine dependence, multilineage
> differentiation, and embryo colonization capacity are fully restored
> upon transgene excision. These findings establish a central role for
> Nanog in the transcription factor hierarchy that defines ES cell
> identity.
>
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