title: Linkage of pluripotent stem cell-associated transcripts to regulatory gene networks.
abstract: Knowledge of the transcriptional circuitry responsible for pluripotentiality and self-renewal in embryonic stem cells is tantamount to understanding early mammalian development and a prerequisite to determining their therapeutic potential. Various techniques have employed genomics to identify transcripts that were abundant in stem cells, in an attempt to define the molecular basis of 'stemness'. In this study, we have extended traditional genomic analyses to identify cis-elements that might be implicated in the control of embryonic stem cell-restricted gene promoters. The strategy relied on the generation of a problem-specific list from serial analysis of gene expression profiles and subsequent promoter analyses to identify frameworks of multiple cis-elements conserved in space and orientation among genes from the problem-specific list. Subsequent experimental data suggest that 2 novel transcription factors, B-Myb and Maz, predicted from these models, are implicated either in the maintenance of the undifferentiated stem cell state or in early steps of differentiation.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Cardiovascular Science, National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health, Baltimore, MD 21224, USA.
authors.forename: Kirill V
authors.initials: KV
authors.lastname: Tarasov
authors.forename: Gianluca
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Testa
authors.forename: Yelena S
authors.initials: YS
authors.lastname: Tarasova
authors.forename: Gabriela
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Kania
authors.forename: Daniel R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Riordon
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Volkova
authors.forename: Sergey V
authors.initials: SV
authors.lastname: Anisimov
authors.forename: Anna M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Wobus
authors.forename: Kenneth R
authors.initials: KR
authors.lastname: Boheler
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D002460:Cell Line; D047369:Chromatin Immunoprecipitation; D017124:Conserved Sequence; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D018507:Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental; D053263:Gene Regulatory Networks; D051379:Mice; D008957:Models, Genetic; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D039904:Pluripotent Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology / Q000378:metabolism*; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D012045:Regulatory Sequences, Nucleic Acid / Q000235:genetics; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D014157:Transcription Factors / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D012333:RNA, Messenger; D014157:Transcription Factors