The transcription factor Pou3f1 promotes neural fate commitment via activation of neural lineage genes and inhibition of external signaling pathways
- Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
- CAS-MPG Partner Institute for Computational Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
- Institute of Life Science, Nanchang University, China
Abstract
The neural fate commitment of pluripotent stem cells requires the repression of extrinsic inhibitory signals and the activation of intrinsic positive transcription factors. However, how these two events are integrated to ensure appropriate neural conversion remains unclear. Here, we showed that Pou3f1 is essential for the neural differentiation of mouse embryonic stem cells (ESCs), specifically during the transition from epiblast stem cells (EpiSCs) to neural progenitor cells (NPCs). Chimeric analysis showed that Pou3f1 knockdown leads to a markedly decreased incorporation of ESCs in the neuroectoderm. By contrast, Pou3f1-overexpressing ESC derivatives preferentially contribute to the neuroectoderm. Genome-wide ChIP-seq and RNA-seq analyses indicated that Pou3f1 is an upstream activator of neural lineage genes, and also is a repressor of BMP and Wnt signaling. Our results established that Pou3f1 promotes the neural fate commitment of pluripotent stem cells through a dual role, activating internal neural induction programs and antagonizing extrinsic neural inhibitory signals.
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Animal experimentation: This study was performed in strict accordance under the ethical guidelines of the Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology and all experiments were approved by the committee on the Ethics of Animal Experiments of the Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology.
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© 2014, Zhu et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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The transcription factor Pou3f1 promotes neural fate commitment via activation of neural lineage genes and inhibition of external signaling pathways
eLife 3:e02224.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.02224
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