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Addition of methyl groups to arginine residues is catalyzed by a group of enzymes called Protein Arginine Methyltransferases (Prmt). Although Prmt1 is essential in development, its paralogue Prmt8 has been poorly studied. This gene was reported to be expressed in nervous system and involved in neurogenesis. In this work, we found that Prmt8 is expressed in mouse embryonic stem cells (ESC) and in induced pluripotent stem cells, and modulated along differentiation to neural precursor cells. We found that Prmt8 promoter activity is induced by the pluripotency transcription factors Oct4, Sox2 and Nanog. Moreover, endogenous Prmt8 mRNA levels were reduced in ESC transfected with Sox2 shRNA vector. As a whole, our results indicate that Prmt8 is expressed in pluripotent stem cells and its transcription is modulated by pluripotency transcription factors. These findings suggest that besides its known function in nervous system, Prmt8 could play a role in pluripotent stem cells., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Human foreskin fibroblasts were used to generate the iPSC line iPSC-FH2.1 using the EF1a-hSTEMCCA-loxP vector expressing OCT4, SOX2, c-MYC and KLF4, in 5% O2 culture conditions. Stemness was confirmed, as was pluripotency both in vivo and in vitro, in normoxia and hypoxia. Human Embryonic Stem Cell (hESC) line WA-09 and reprogrammed fibroblast primary culture HFF-FM were used as controls., (Copyright © 2015 University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are a promising source of cells for regenerative medicine because of their potential of self renew and differentiation. Multiple evidences highlight the relationship of chromatin remodeling with stem cell properties, differentiation programs and reprogramming for iPSC obtention. With the purpose of finding chromatin modifying factors relevant to these processes, and based on ChIP on chip studies, we selected several genes that could be modulated by Oct4, Sox2 and Nanog, critical transcription factors in stem cells, and studied their expression profile along the differentiation in mouse and human ESCs, and in mouse iPSCs. In this work, we analyzed the expression of Gcn5l2, GTF3C3, TAF15, ATF7IP, Myst2, HDAC2, HDAC3, HDAC5, HDAC10, SUV39H2, Jarid2, and Bmi-1. We found some genes from different functional groups that were highly modulated, suggesting that they could be relevant both in the undifferentiated state and during differentiation. These findings could contribute to the comprehension of molecular mechanisms involved in pluripotency, early differentiation and reprogramming. We believe that a deeper knowledge of the epigenetic regulation of ESC will allow improving somatic cell reprogramming for iPSC obtention and differentiation protocols optimization., (Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are a promising type of stem cells, comparable to embryonic stem cells (ESCs) in terms of self-renew and pluripotency, generated by reprogramming somatic cells. These cells are an attractive approach to supply patient-specific pluripotent cells, for producing in vitro models of disease, drug discovery, toxicology and potentially treating degenerative disease circumventing immune rejection. In spite of the great advance since iPSCs' establishment, their obtention and propagation is an increasing area of great interest. In a recent work, we have shown that the conditioned medium from a bovine granulosa cell line (BGC-CM) is able to preserve the basic properties of mESCs. Therefore, based on our previous results and the reported resemblance between iPSCs and ESCs, we hypothesized that BGC-CM could provide a favorable context to culturing iPSCs. In this work, we have reprogrammed mouse embryonic fibroblasts obtaining iPSC lines, and showed that they can be propagated in BGC-CM while maintaining self-renewal and pluripotency, evidenced by expression of specific gene markers and capability of in vitro and in vivo differentiation to cell types from the three germ layers. We believe that these findings may provide a novel context to propagate iPSCs to study the molecular mechanisms involved in self-renewal and pluripotency., (Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)