SUMMARY Pluripotent stem cell lines can be derived from blastocyst embryos, which yield embryonic stem cell lines (ES cells), as well as the post-implantation epiblast, which gives rise to epiblast stem cell lines (EpiSCs). Remarkably, ES cells and EpiSCs display profound differences in the combination of growth factors that maintain their pluripotent state. Molecular and functional differences between these two stem cell types demonstrate that the tissue of origin and/or the growth factor milieu may be important determinants of the stem cell identity. We explored how developmental stage of the tissue of origin and culture growth factor conditions affect the stem cell pluripotent state. Our findings reveal that novel stem cell lines can be generated from blastocyst embryos with unique functional and molecular properties. We demonstrate that the culture growth factor environment and cell-cell interaction play a critical role in defining several unique and stable stem cell ground states.

Murine embryonic stem cells have been shown to exist in two functionally distinct pluripotent states, embryonic stem cells (ES cell)- and epiblast stem cells (EpiSCs), which are defined by the culture growth factor conditions. Human ES cells appear to exist in an epiblast-like state, which in comparison to their murine counterparts, is relatively difficult to propagate and manipulate. As a result, gene targeting is difficult and to-date only a handful of human knock-in or knock-out cell lines exist. We explored whether an alternative stem cell state exists for human stem cells as well, and demonstrate that manipulation of the growth factor milieu allows the derivation of a novel human stem cell type that displays morphological, molecular and functional properties of murine ES cells and facilitates gene targeting. As such, the murine ES-like state provides a powerful tool for the generation of recombinant human pluripotent stem cell lines.