Modelling unveils sex differences of signalling networks in mouse embryonic stem cells
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Zeba Sultana
PROVIDER: S-SCDT-10_15252-MSB_202211510 | biostudies-other |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other
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Project description:We performed a systematic analysis of gene expression features in early (10-21 days) development of human vs mouse embryonic cells (hESCs vs mESCs). Many development features were found to be conserved, and a majority of differentially regulated genes have similar expression change in both organisms. The similarity is especially evident, when gene expression profiles are clustered together and properties of clustered groups of genes are compared. First 10 days of mESC development match the features of hESC development within 21 days, in accordance with the differences in population doubling time in human and mouse ESCs. At the same time, several important differences are seen. There is a clear difference in initial expression change of transcription factors and stimulus responsive genes, which may be caused by the difference in experimental procedures. However, we also found that some biological processes develop differently; this can clearly be shown, for example, for neuron and sensory organ development. Some groups of genes show peaks of the expression levels during the development and these peaks cannot be claimed to happen at the same time points in the two organisms, as well as for the same groups of (orthologous) genes. We also detected a larger number of upregulated genes during development of mESCs as compared to hESCs. The differences were quantified by comparing promoters of related genes. Most of gene groups behave similarly and have similar transcription factor (TF) binding sites on their promoters. A few groups of genes have similar promoters, but are expressed differently in two species. Interestingly, there are groups of genes expressed similarly, although they have different promoters, which can be shown by comparing their TF binding sites. Namely, a large group of similarly expressed cell cycle-related genes is found to have discrepant TF binding properties in mouse vs human.
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Project description:Pluripotent embryonic stem cells (ESC) are a promising cellular system for generating an unlimited source of tissue for the treatment of chronic diseases and valuable in vitro differentiation models for drug testing. Our aim was to direct differentiation of mouse ESC into pancreatic acinar cells, which play key roles in pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer. To that end, ESC were first differentiated as embryoid bodies and sequentially incubated with activin A, inhibitors of Sonic hedgehog (Shh) and bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) pathways, fibroblast growth factors (FGF) and retinoic acid (RA) in order to achieve a stepwise increase in the expression of mRNA transcripts encoding for endodermal and pancreatic progenitor markers. Subsequent plating in Matrigel® and concomitant modulation of FGF, glucocorticoid, and folllistatin signalling pathways involved in exocrine differentiation resulted in a significant increase of mRNAs encoding secretory enzymes and in the number of cells co-expressing their protein products. Also, pancreatic endocrine marker expression was down-regulated and accompanied by a significant reduction in the number of hormone-expressing cells with a limited presence of hepatic marker expressing-cells. These findings suggest a selective activation of the acinar differentiation program. The newly differentiated cells were able to release ?-amylase and this feature was greatly improved by lentiviral-mediated expression of Rbpjl and Ptf1a, two transcription factors involved in the maximal production of digestive enzymes. This study provides a novel method to produce functional pancreatic exocrine cells from ESC.
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