FGF regulation of Nodal signaling in human iPS cells

Research Project

Project/Area Number	16K21243
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
Allocation Type	Multi-year Fund
Research Field	Integrative animal science General medical chemistry
Research Institution	University of Miyazaki
Principal Investigator	Wakitani Shoichi 宮崎大学, 農学部, 講師 (40621800)
Research Collaborator	NISHINO Koichiro YASUDA Masahiro LOVELAND Kate ARAI Yoshikazu TAKASAWA Ken
Project Period (FY)	2016-04-01 – 2018-03-31
Project Status	Completed (Fiscal Year 2017)
Budget Amount *help	¥4,160,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,200,000、Indirect Cost: ¥960,000) Fiscal Year 2017: ¥1,560,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,200,000、Indirect Cost: ¥360,000) Fiscal Year 2016: ¥2,600,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,000,000、Indirect Cost: ¥600,000)
Keywords	多能性幹細胞 / FGF / Nodal / Cripto / DNAメチル化 / ヒトiPS細胞 / Nodal-Activin / BMP / 幹細胞 / 再生医学
Outline of Final Research Achievements	Human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells requires fibroblast growth factor (FGF) to maintain its proliferation and stemness. To clarify the role of FGF, analysis of gene expression kinetics of human iPS cells after FGF signal inhibition was performed. The results showed that disfunction of Cripto, which is essential for maintenance of human iPS cells, occurred before down-regulation of Cripto, suggesting that FGF maintains activation of Cripto via posttranscriptional regulation. We also revealed that Cripto gene expression is regulated by DNA methylation, but the down-regulation of Cripto after differentiation of human iPS cells did not involve DNA methylation.