Elucidation of the mechanism of maintenance of ES cell pluripotency through analyses of regulatory factors of retroelements

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25640048
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Laboratory animal science
• Research Institution: Nara Medical University
• Principal Investigator: HORIE Kyoji 奈良県立医科大学, 医学部, 教授 (30333446)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: ES細胞 / レトロエレメント / ゲノム / 遺伝子 / エピジェネティクス

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Analyses of the regulatory mechanisms of ES/iPS cell pluripotency is an important issue for the application of ES/iPS cells toward clinical fields. It has been known that expression of retroelements is tightly regulated in ES/iPS cells. Therefore, aberrant expression of retroelements implies abnormality of pluripotency of ES/iPS cells. We recently developed a method to generate homozygous mutant mouse embryonic stem cells and established a large number of mutant cell lines. in the present study, we screened these homozygous mutant cell lines for abnormal expression of retroelements. Among them, we identified cell lines exhibiting abnormalities in the regulation of pluripotency. It it likely that the mutated genes play important roles in the regulation of the pluripotency or ES/iPS cells.

Free Research Field

分子生物学