School of Life Science and Technology, ShanghaiTech University, 230 Haike Rd, Shanghai 201210, China.
Int J Mol Sci. 2019 Jul 25;20(15):3643. doi: 10.3390/ijms20153643.
Early embryonic development in mammals, from fertilization to implantation, can be viewed as a process in which stem cells alternate between self-renewal and differentiation. During this process, the fates of stem cells in embryos are gradually specified, from the totipotent state, through the segregation of embryonic and extraembryonic lineages, to the molecular and cellular defined progenitors. Most of those stem cells with different potencies in vivo can be propagated in vitro and recapitulate their differentiation abilities. Complex and coordinated regulations, such as epigenetic reprogramming, maternal RNA clearance, transcriptional and translational landscape changes, as well as the signal transduction, are required for the proper development of early embryos. Accumulated studies suggest that Dicer-dependent noncoding RNAs, including microRNAs (miRNAs) and endogenous small-interfering RNAs (endo-siRNAs), are involved in those regulations and therefore modulate biological properties of stem cells in vitro and in vivo. Elucidating roles of these noncoding RNAs will give us a more comprehensive picture of mammalian embryonic development and enable us to modulate stem cell potencies. In this review, we will discuss roles of miRNAs in regulating the maintenance and cell fate potential of stem cells in/from mouse and human early embryos.
哺乳动物的早期胚胎发育，从受精到着床，可以看作是干细胞在自我更新和分化之间交替的过程。在此过程中，胚胎中干细胞的命运逐渐被确定，从全能状态，通过胚胎和胚胎外谱系的分离，到分子和细胞定义的祖细胞。大多数具有不同潜能的干细胞可以在体外增殖并重现其分化能力。早期胚胎的正常发育需要复杂而协调的调控，如表观遗传重编程、母体 RNA 清除、转录和翻译景观变化以及信号转导。累积的研究表明，Dicer 依赖性非编码 RNA，包括 microRNAs (miRNAs) 和内源性小干扰 RNA (endo-siRNAs)，参与这些调控，因此调节体外和体内干细胞的生物学特性。阐明这些非编码 RNA 的作用将使我们更全面地了解哺乳动物胚胎发育，并使我们能够调节干细胞的潜能。在这篇综述中，我们将讨论 miRNA 在调节小鼠和人类早期胚胎中干细胞的维持和细胞命运潜能方面的作用。
