Feeders facilitate telomere maintenance and chromosomal stability of embryonic stem cells

Renpeng Guo, Xiaoying Ye, Jiao Yang, Zhongcheng Zhou, Chenglei Tian, Hua Wang, Haiying Wang, Haifeng Fu, Chun Liu, Ming Zeng, Jun Yang and Lin Liu ()
Additional contact information
Renpeng Guo: Nankai University
Xiaoying Ye: Nankai University
Jiao Yang: Nankai University
Zhongcheng Zhou: Nankai University
Chenglei Tian: Nankai University
Hua Wang: Nankai University
Haiying Wang: Nankai University
Haifeng Fu: Nankai University
Chun Liu: Nankai University
Ming Zeng: Nankai University
Jun Yang: Nankai University
Lin Liu: Nankai University

Nature Communications, 2018, vol. 9, issue 1, 1-16

Abstract: Abstract Feeder cells like mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) have been widely applied for culture of pluripotent stem cells, but their roles remain elusive. Noticeably, ESCs cultured on the feeders display transcriptional heterogeneity. We investigated roles of feeder cells by examining the telomere maintenance. Here we show that telomere is longer in mESCs cultured with than without the feeders. mESC cultures without MEF feeders exhibit telomere loss, chromosomal fusion, and aneuploidy with increasing passages. Notably, feeders facilitate heterogeneous transcription of 2-cell genes including Zscan4 and telomere elongation. Moreover, feeders produce Fstl1 that together with BMP4 periodically activate Zscan4. Interestingly, Zscan4 is repressed in mESCs cultured in 2i (inhibitors of Mek and Gsk3β signaling) media, associated with shorter telomeres and increased chromosome instability. These data suggest the important role of feeders in maintaining telomeres for long-term stable self-renewal and developmental pluripotency of mESCs.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-05038-2 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:9:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-018-05038-2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-05038-2

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().