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First published online April 10, 2008
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2008-0102v1
26/6/1496    most recent
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Submitted on February 18, 2008
Accepted on March 19, 2008

EMBRYONIC STEM CELLS

Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 is Dispensable for Maintenance of Embryonic Stem Cell Pluripotency

Stormy J. Chamberlain 1, Della Yee 1, Terry Magnuson 1*

1 Department of Genetics and Carolina Center for Genome Sciences, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599 USA

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: trm4{at}med.unc.edu.


  Abstract

Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 (PRC2) methylates histone H3 tails at lysine 27 and is essential for embryonic development. The three core components of PRC2,Eed, Ezh2, and Suz12, are also highly expressed in embryonic stem (ES) cells where they are postulated to repress developmental regulators and thereby prevent differentiation to maintain the pluripotent state. We performed gene expression and chimera analyses on low and high passage Eednull ES cells to determine whether PRC2 is required for the maintenance of pluripotency. We report here that, although developmental regulators are overexpressed in Eednull ES cells, both low and high passage cells are functionally pluripotent. We hypothesize that they are pluripotent because they maintain expression of critical pluripotency factors. Given that EED is required for stability of EZH2, the catalytic subunit of the complex, these data suggest that PRC2 is not necessary for the maintenance of the pluripotent state in ES cells. We propose a positive-only model of embryonic stem cell maintenance, where positive regulation of pluripotency factors is sufficient to mediate stem cell pluripotency.

______________________________________________________________________________

Author contributions: S.J.C.: Conception and design, Collection and/or assembly of data, Data analysis and interpretation, and Manuscript writing; D.Y.: Collection and/or assembly of data and Data analysis and interpretation; T.M.: Conception and design, Financial support, Provision of study material, Data analysis and interpretation, Manuscript writing, and Final approval of manuscript.

 Key Words. embryonic stem cell, pluripotent, epigenetics, gene expression, embryo




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