Poster Presentation 6th Annual Meeting for Australasian Society for Stem Cell Research 2013

P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; direction: ltr; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); widows: 2; orphans: 2; }P.western { } Gene expression variability as a unifying element of the pluripotency network (#145)

Elizabeth A Mason 1 , Jessica C Mar 2 , Andrew Laslett 3 , Martin Pera 4 , John Quackenbush 5 , Ernst Wolvetang 1 , Christine A Wells 1
  1. AIBN, the University of Queensland, St Lucia, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
  2. The Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York, NY, USA
  3. Materials Science and Engineering, CSIRO, Clayton, VIC, Australia
  4. Centre for Neuroscience Research, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
  5. Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard University, Cambridge, Boston, MA, USA
The term “pluripotent stem cell” encompasses a range of cellular phenotypes, with the dual ability to self renew and generate cells of the three embryonic germ layers. Phenotypic heterogeneity is a hallmark of pluripotent stem cell populations, and is a function of the oscillatory behaviour of Oct4 and Nanog, the master-regulators of the pluripotency gene regulatory network. Here we present evidence that variability in the expression of such genes provides a new metric with which to characterize human pluripotent stem cell populations. We conclude that even in homogenous populations, the underlying genetic network displays high and low-variance elements. We show that those genes with the least expression variability are also highly connected, demonstrating a high level of regulatory constraint of the core network elements. Oct4 and Nanog exhibit different patterns of expression variability, indicating changes in the stabilisation of expression of these key factors in different stem cell phenotypes. Expression variability provides insight into the heterogeneity of a pluripotent stem cell population, as well as insight into the regulation of key network elements within a well-defined pluripotency network.