Lessons learned from functional assessment of pluripotency-associated transcription factors during early embryogenesis and embryonic stem cells

Abstract

Pluripotency-associated transcription factors (PATF) play significant roles during early embryogenesis and in embryonic stem (ES) cells, such as control of cell-cycle progression, modulation of cellular metabolism, and transcriptional control of differentiation-inducing factors. The review aims to describe the current understanding of how these PATFs contribute to the early embryo and the ES-cell phenotypes. By a selection of representative examples of such PATFs, their roles are described, and some interesting questions are presented concerning their activity in pluripotent cells which have yet to be addressed.Keywords: embryology; pluripotent; preimplantation development; totipotency. ResumoFatores de transcrição relacionados à pluripotência (FTRP) apresentam importantes funções durante a embriogênese inicial e em células-tronco embrionárias (CTE), como o controle da progressão do ciclo celular, modulação do metabolismo celular e controle transcricional de fatores indutores de diferenciação celular. O objetivo da revisão foi descrever o conhecimento vigente sobre como estes FTRPs contribuem para o fenótipo dos embriões e CTEs. Através da seleção de exemplos representativos destes FTRPs, suas funções são descritas e algumas perguntas interessantes são apresentadas considerando suas atividades em células pluripotentes, mas que ainda não foram devidamente respondidas.Palavras-Chave: embriologia; pluripotente; desenvolvimento pré-implantacional; totipotência.

Temporal expression of pluripotency-associated transcription factors in sheep and cattle preimplantation embryos

“…The molecular control of both totipotency and pluripotency is under intense investigation (Cockburn & Rossant 2010;Moura, 2012;Yeo & Ng, 2013;Dang-Nguyen & Torres-Padilla, 2015;Rossant, 2016;Wu et al, 2016;Silva et al, 2017). These cellular states are controlled at different molecular levels (e.g.…”

“…epigenetic, transcriptional, and post-transcriptional levels), but transcriptional control plays a pivotal role as most characterized genes so far are pluripotency-associated transcription factors (PATF) (Moura, 2012;Rossant, 2016;Wu et al, 2016). Several of such PATFs were identified as required for the maintenance of inner cell mass viability and pluripotency of embryonic stem (ES) cells (Nichols et al, 1998;Yeo & Ng, 2013;Goissis & Cibelli, 2014;Silva et al, 2017).…”