A panel of chimpanzee induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) will help realise the potential of iPSCs in primate studies, and in combination with genomic technologies, transform studies of comparative evolution.
Genetic manipulations show that endogenous transcription factors of the SoxB1 class act redundantly to maintain primed pluripotency and reveal differential effects on transitions between pluripotent and differentiation states.
RNA-binding protein SRSF3 mediates critical changes in RNA processing of pluripotency genes, which reveals functional consequences of regulated RNA processing during stem cell self-renewal and early development.
OCT4 and SOX2 display partially independent activity to regulate chromatin accessibility, and highly dynamic activity of OCT4 is required throughout the cell cycle to maintain pluripotency enhancer accessibility.
Naive hPSCs can readily give rise to human trophoblast stem cells, thus demonstrating their extraembryonic lineage potential and providing a new model system to study human trophectoderm specification.
A chemical screen reveals that a compound used to treat a parasitic disease can trigger pluripotent stem cells to become neurons, uncovering a novel mechanism behind neuronal development.
An expandable cell population derived from human pluripotent stem cells exhibits properties of mesoderm and is restricted to differentiate into derivatives of intermediate mesoderm.
The differentiation decisions made by pluripotent cells depend on their exposure to appropriate extrinsic signals and also on morphogenetic events that control receptivity to those differentiation cues.