Ohtsuka S, Dalton S
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Paul D Coverdell Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30606, USA.
Gene Ther. 2008 Jan;15(2):74-81. doi: 10.1038/sj.gt.3303065. Epub 2007 Nov 8.
The inner cell mass of pre-implantation blastocyst stage embryos is a source of cells that can be cultured indefinitely in vitro as a self-renewing, pluripotent population. In this review, we discuss the hallmarks of pluripotent cells derived from murine and human embryos and compare signaling pathways and transcriptional networks required to maintain them in a stable, pluripotent state. Culture conditions required for maintenance of murine and human embryonic stem cells (ESCs) vary significantly, but numerous 'critical' factors have been identified as being important for ESC pluripotency. We will attempt to reconcile the literature in terms of what is critical, from a signal transduction perspective, for maintenance of pluripotency. Finally, we consider recent findings describing a new pluripotent population of cells derived from the mouse epiblast, which seem to be more closely related to hESCs than mESCs. This poses some interesting questions as to the developmental equivalence of hESCs and suggests how we need to re-evaluate how we think of hESCs in the future.
植入前囊胚阶段胚胎的内细胞团是一类细胞来源，这些细胞能够作为自我更新的多能细胞群体在体外无限期培养。在本综述中，我们讨论了源自小鼠和人类胚胎的多能细胞的特征，并比较了将它们维持在稳定多能状态所需的信号通路和转录网络。维持小鼠和人类胚胎干细胞（ESC）所需的培养条件差异很大，但已确定许多“关键”因素对ESC多能性很重要。我们将尝试从信号转导的角度，梳理关于维持多能性的关键因素的文献。最后，我们考虑了最近的研究发现，这些发现描述了源自小鼠上胚层的一种新的多能细胞群体，它们似乎与人类胚胎干细胞的关系比与小鼠胚胎干细胞的关系更密切。这就关于人类胚胎干细胞的发育等效性提出了一些有趣的问题，并提示我们未来需要重新评估我们对人类胚胎干细胞的看法。
