Stem cells Flashcards
What is a totipotent cell and when is this?
A cell that can produce an entire organism. Only a zygote and blastomere from 2-8 cell stage embryo belong to this category
What is a pluripotent cell?
A cell that is able to give rise to derivatives of all three germ layers –> Embryonic stem cells (=epiblast). NOT extra-embryonic tissue.
What is a multipotent cell?
A cell that can give rise to multiple cell types, but that is restricted to a specific sublineage or argan.
Most adult/somatic stem cells belong to this category.
What is a unipotent cell?
A cell that can give rise to only one cell type
What is the zona pellucida and its function?
The zona pellucida is a glycoprotein layer surrounding the plasma membrane of mammalian oocytes –> remains until implantation into the womb
Function: protection of oocyte.
What are cumulus cells and what is its function?
Cumulus cells are somatic cells surrounding the oocyte. They interact with the oocyte which is crucial for the maturation of the oocyte.
How can genetic testing of the embryo be done?
Before implantation one cell can be removed for genetic testing. Cleavage stage embryos are flexible and this does not harm the embryo.
What is the morula?
Stage of embryo where the first differentiation happens. Difference between the inner and outer cells –> Inner cells only has different cells as neighbour while the outer cells have an inner and outer cells as neighbour.
What is activated in the outer cells but not in the inner cells and how does this happen?
Outer cells: YAP is a transcription factor for cdx2
Inner cells: YAP is phosphorylated and destroyed.
What are markers for the trophectoderm and ICM?
Trophectoderm: Cdx2
Inner cell mass: Oct4
What are markers for the epiblast (EPI) and primitive endoderm/hypoblast (PE)?
Epiblast: Nanog
Primitive endoderm: Gata6
What does MAPkinase?
MAPK induces Gata6 expression and represses Nanog
What will the primitive endoderm form and what is its function?
PE will form the yolksac which is important for providing nutrients and oxygen in the embryo.
How can it be tested that a cell is totipotent?
1 cell can give rise to whole organism
How can it be tested that a cell is pluripotent?
1) Use chimaera
Mix potential pluripotent stem cells with ICM of embryo and implant in womb - see if potential stem cells form all germ layers.
For humans: to this in an immunocompromised mouse and a tumor will be formed. If cells are pluripotent is will be teratome (= tumor consisting of three germ layers)
What happens in the different weeks of development?
Week 1: Embryo reaches uterus and implants
Week 2: Embryo grows into many cells
Week 2-4: Placentation - exchange gas and nutrients between fetus and mother
What are developmental difference between humans and other animals?
- Placenta looks different
- Implantation in humans is very invasive - is not the case in all animals
- In the mouse the location of amnion, embryo and yolk sac is different.
What is nuclear reprogramming (also called nuclear transfer) ?
1) Take oocyte and remove nucleus
2) Take nucleus from somatic cell
3) Combine this oocyte and nucleus
4) Activate oocyte with small electrical pulse or chemically –> cause calcium flow that activates active cell division
5) Embryo will form
6) Place embryo in pseudopregnant mother
7) Clone of animal from which nucleus of somatic cell is taken will form.
What does nuclear reprogramming show?
That an adult cells:
1) Contains all the information of a complete animal
2) The information can be retrieved by putting the nucleus in egg cytoplasm
What is needed for reprogramming of somatic cells to a pluripotent cells and how are these cells called?
Factors: Oct4, Sox2, Klf4 and C-myc
Cells are called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells)
What are pros and cons of doing somatic-cell nuclear transfer and making iPS cells (=direct reprogramming)?
Somatic-cell nuclear transfer: - Many oocytes needed - Ethically debatable - Very complex iPS cells: - Can be done with all differentiated cells - Inefficient
What is the difference between ESC and EpiSC?
ESC lines are from pre-implantation
EpiSC are from post-implantation
What are the properties of embryonic stem cells:
1) Self-renewal (longevity)
2) Able to differentiate into all germ layers (multipotency)
What can be used to culture ESC in vitro?
1) Use fibroblast feeder cells –> support the undifferentiated propagation of stem cells
2) Use Leukaemia inhibitory factor (LIF) in medium with serum –> serum contains BMP
What does LIF do?
Enables ESC self-renewal by inhibiting differentiation. Does this through phosphorylation of the transcription factor STAT3 which translocates to the nucleus and activates genes.
How do ESC look like in vitro?
Dense colony, big nuclei, little cytoplasm, prominent nucleoli
What does the bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) do?
BMP can block neural differentiation by inducing transcription of Id genes.
What do Id proteins do?
Id proteins sequester (=isolate) ubiquitous pro-neural bHLH proteins into non-functional dimers.
What do LIF & BMP together do?
Block germ layer differentiation.
BMP –> induce Id genes –> block neuroectoderm differentiation
LIF –> induce Stat3 genes –> block mesoderm and endoderm differentiation
What are the core pluripotency transcription factors in ESCs and what is their structure?
Nanog, Oct4 and Sox2
Consist of:
- DNA binding domain (HD, HMG, POU)
- Transactivating domain (TAD)
What happens when Oct4 OR Sox2 is deleted?
Trophectodermal differentiation –> cannot specify ICM
THUS both essential for specification of pluripotency in vivo
What do OCT & Sox recognize and how is their relative orientation?
Oct and Sox recognize palindromic DNA sequences
Their orientation is next to each other —> —>
Probably because side-chains of S domain of Oct bind to side chains of HMG domains of Sox
–> TF Oct and Sox act combinatorially to direct gene expression
What does nanog do?
- Suppress differentiation of TE and PE
- Induce efficiency of self-renewal
- -> Nanog is not essential - ESCs without Nanog can self-renew but with reduced efficiency
How are Oct4 and Sox2 expressed and how is nanog expressed?
Oct4 and Sox2 are homogenous expressed
Nanog is heterogenous expressed
What happens to the cell fate at different concentration levels of Oct4?
Low concentration Oct4 –> trophectoderm
Intermediate concentration –> pluripotent stem cells
High concentration –> endoderm or mesoderm.
What can FGF do?
FGF can drive loss of naive pluripotency
–> Fgf4 is an Oct/Sox target gene that is expressed in ESCs.
What is the mechanism of action of FGF?
- FGF binds to FGFR
- Activated FGFR activates Ras
- Ras stimulates a phosphorylation cascade operating via MEK/ERK kinases
- -> erk2-null ESCs have impaired differentiation capacity.
What does the inhibition of MEK and GSK3B do?
It circumvents the ESC requirement for BMP
What is ‘2i /LIF’ and what happens?
In 2i/LIF a combination of MEK inhibition, GSK3B inhibition and LIF is used for maintaining pluripotency of ESCs.
ESC are more rounded, clearly differentiated cells are absents, expression of Nanog is homogenous.
–> ESCs are trapped in a so-called ‘Ground State; in which pre-implantation specific TFs are robustly expressed.
How can pluripotency be resuscitated (make active again)?
By Oct4 expression.
What are the difference between monogenic and sporadic diseases?
Monogenic: - Rare - Clear genetics - Often display robust phenotype Sporadic, late onset diseases: - Common and medically most relevant - No clear genetic basis - Likely a more subtle phenotype
What can ESC be used for?
To study development and disease
What can iPS cell be used for and what is an issue with this?
For disease modeling, drug screening and cell therapy
For example:
Take control iPS cell and iPS cells from patient with ALS and perform chemical screening
Issue: control cells for iPS
There are unpredictable difference between individual iPS cells due to genetic background. Is a subtle phenotype disease related or rather due to the system-immanent iPSC-iPSC variation?
What is the solution for the issue of control cells for IPSC?
Isogenic control with identical genetic background.
Get iPSC from 1 person
Two options:
1) take healthy iPSCs and induce disease
2) take disease iPSCs and repair mutation with Crispr/Cas
How to use isogenic control in monogenic diseases and how in sporadic diseases?
Monogenetic: Correct the mutation in sick iPSCs or induce mutation in healthy iPSCs.
Sporadic: –> is combination of age, genetic susceptibility, environmental risk and positive family history –> first identify risk loci in GWAS
When risk loci is identified then correct or induce mutation .
What is the problem for gene targeting/editing in humans?
Homologous recombination is very inefficient in human ES / iPS cells –> Crispr/Cas already improved this a lot
What are the issues of gene editing in the embryo/germ line?
1) Scientific issues
2) Ethical issues
What are possible applications of gene editing in the human embryo/germ line and its issues ?
1) Correction of disease causing mutation
Issues: Any manipulation will alter genes in 50% (dominant genes) or 75% (recessive genes) of normal embryos –> cannot distinguish mutant and normal embryos by genotyping.
2) Disease resistance by inactivation of a susceptibility gene or expression of protective gene
Alternative: specific tissue cells can be manipulated in postnatal individuals by somatic gene editing –> thus, germ line editing may not be needed
3) Enhancement –> Example insertion of growth hormone gene
Ethical issues
What is Waddington’s epigenetic landscape?
Illustrates a very potent cell that is on top of the hill and goes down while making choices. This reduces the amount of possibilities –> when choice is made it cannot go back. When the ball is at the bottom of the hill it represents a differentiated cell.
Which ways of epigenetic regulation are there?
- Accessibility of genes is in a heritable fashion.
Modification of chromatin in 4 ways:
1) DNA methylation - Double configuration - on both strands
2) Histone modifications or use of special histone variants
3) Association of ATP-dependent complexes (polycomb/tritorax proteins) - Change distance between nucleosomes
4) Association with non-coding RNAs
What are important DNA methyltransferases and what do they do?
DNMT3a and DNMT3b
Both involve in de novo methylation - not known how methylation pattern is determined
DNMT1
Involved in maintenance of methylation during cell division
How does DNA demethylation occur?
Not sure yet but two hypothesis:
1) Passively in the absence of DNMT1
2) Actively by among others ten-eleven translocation (TET) enzymes –> transfer to hemi methylated (5hmC) and then demethylate
What is a big difference between histone and DNA methylation?
DNA methylation involves many enzymes while histone methylation only involves a few enzymes.
What is euchromatin and what is heterochromatin?
Euchromatin = very open --> gene expression Heterochromatin = closed --> gene silincing
How is the X chromosome silenced?
1) Xist (and Tsix) bind to DNA –> non coding RNA.
2) Attract polycomb complexes
3) This puts the mark H327me3 on gene
4) Histone variant macroH2A comes in
5) DNA methylation happens
- -> All epigenetic mechanisms are involved in silencing of X
How does X chromosome inactivation in mice work?
1) Early zygote: both Xs are inactive
2) Preimplantation development: imprinted X inactivation occurs of paternal X
3) In ICM, paternal X becomes active - mouse embryonic stem cells have 2 active X chromosomes
4) Epithelialized embryo: random X inactivation
- -> Pluripotency in mice corresponds to having two activated X chromosomes