Gene expression transcriptome of porcine induced pluripotent stem cell

Pig induced pluripotent stem cells (piPSCs) have significant biomedical and agricultural applications. We analyzed the transcriptional profiles of pig iPSC lines derived from different labs using Affymetrix GeneChip Pig Genome Array and published microarray datasets of mouse and human iPSCs. Our results demonstrated that cell surface proteins of EpCAM (epithelial cells adhesion molecule) were significantly upregulated in complete fully reprogrammed pig iPSCs, but not in partially reprogrammed cells. EpCAM could be markers for evaluating pig cell reprogramming and selecting successful reprogramming. We analyzed gene expression levels of the six key developmental signaling pathways, including JAK-STAT, NOTCH, TGF-b, WNT, MAPK and VEGF in pig, human and mouse iPSCs, respectively. The result demonstrates that the core transcriptional network to maintain pluripotency and self-renewal in pig are different from mouse and human. Pig iPSCs lacked expression of specific nave state markers (e.g. Klf family genes Klf2/4/5, Tbx3), but expressed unregulated primed state markers (e.g. Otx2 and Fabp7). Dlk1-Dio3 domain was silenced in piPSCs as previously seen in mouse and human iPSCs, which explains rare success of generation of pig chimeric and cloned offspring. Our analyses decipher pig somatic cells undergoes reprogramming into a primed state and maintains its regulatory network with define feature with human iPSCs and mouse EpiSCs.

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Liu Y, Ma Y, Yang JY, Cheng D, Liu X, Ma X, West FD, Wang H