Imprinting status of H19 and IGF2 genes during reprogramming of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) into germinative lineages in cattle

Abstract

The study of embryonic stem cells provides significant advances for both cell therapy and basic sciences. However, difficulties on adequate isolation and maintenance of in vitro cultures, as well as ethical and immunological barriers, are common obstacles in its routine practice. The report of induced pluripotency demonstrated by Kazutoshi Takahashi and Shinya Yamanaka instigated new promising studies. Pluripotent stem cells obtained from differentiated cells of various tissues are capable of differentiation into other cell types after gene induction (Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell, iPSC), allowing the generation of autologous cell types that may be used for damaged tissue repair and the generation of new in vitro models of diseases or syndromes, for example.Male and female infertilities affects a large amount of humans or animals at reproductive age; and has recently been shown that murine embryonic stem cells and iPSCs can derive female gametes and functional male, thus becoming of great interest for a possible cell therapy or progress in reproductive biotechnologies. However, this process is still inefficient mostly because of epigenetic reprogramming failure in the maintenance of genomic imprinting (differentially expressed genes according to the parental origin). Therefore, this proposal aims to study the induction of iPS cells into primordial germ cells (PGCs) and its effect on the expression of imprinted genes H19 and IGF2, which gene regulation is important for cell reprogramming and essential for the appropriate embryonic and placental development.