Induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells have a tremendous potential for aidvancing our understanding of human development and disease. To help unlock this potential we have organized a program to (A) comprehensively identify the genetic and epigenetic components of the regulatory network that maintains cells in a pluripotent state;(B) characterize culture-induced variation in the activites of these components in pluripotent cells;and (C) characterize temporal variation in their activities during induction of pluripotency with defined factors. To achieve these goals, we have formulated four interdependent projects: Project I (Meissner) will (1) characterize transcriptional coregulators and small non-coding RNAs that modulate the activity of the core pluripotency transcription factors, and (2) define and isolate subpopulations from pluripotent cell cultures to characterize their transcriptional and epigenetic states. Project II (Rinn) will characterize long non-coding RNAs expressed in pluripotent cells and elucidate their role in remodeling the epigenetic landscape during reprogramming. Project III (Mikkelsen) will characterize the cis-regulatory modules that direct activation, maintenace and repression of gene expression in pluripotent cells by recruiting transcription factors and their coregulators to key genomic loci. Project IV (Eggan) will characterize the inheritance patterns and maintenance of inactivated X chromosomes during reprogramming and in pluripotent cell cultures. The four projects rely on complementary use of innovative high-throughput genomic and proteomic technologies to profile high-quality iPS cell lines. The integration of data and insights from each of the projects will generate a comprehensive view of protein-protein, protein-RNA and protein-DNA interactions essential to the maintenace of pluripotency (goal A). This intergrated view will then guide studies of culture- induced and temporal variation in the network (goals B and C).

Public Health Relevance

Induced pluripotent stem cells are a potential revolutionary tool for disease modeling, drug screening and regenerative medicine. This program is organized to fully characterize the molecular properties of these cells, which is essential to ensure that their use in biomedicine is effective and safe.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS)
Type
Research Program Projects (P01)
Project #
5P01GM099117-04
Application #
8717677
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZGM1-GDB-8 (IP))
Program Officer
Haynes, Susan R
Project Start
2011-08-01
Project End
2016-07-31
Budget Start
2014-08-01
Budget End
2015-07-31
Support Year
4
Fiscal Year
2014
Total Cost
$2,102,947
Indirect Cost
$579,557
Name
Harvard University
Department
Anatomy/Cell Biology
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
082359691
City
Cambridge
State
MA
Country
United States
Zip Code
02138
Pasque, Vincent; Karnik, Rahul; Chronis, Constantinos et al. (2018) X Chromosome Dosage Influences DNA Methylation Dynamics during Reprogramming to Mouse iPSCs. Stem Cell Reports 10:1537-1550
Charlton, Jocelyn; Downing, Timothy L; Smith, Zachary D et al. (2018) Global delay in nascent strand DNA methylation. Nat Struct Mol Biol 25:327-332
Maass, Philipp G; Barutcu, A Rasim; Weiner, Catherine L et al. (2018) Inter-chromosomal Contact Properties in Live-Cell Imaging and in Hi-C. Mol Cell 69:1039-1045.e3
Shukla, Chinmay J; McCorkindale, Alexandra L; Gerhardinger, Chiara et al. (2018) High-throughput identification of RNA nuclear enrichment sequences. EMBO J 37:
Maass, Philipp G; Barutcu, A Rasim; Weiner, Catherine L et al. (2018) Inter-chromosomal Contact Properties in Live-Cell Imaging and in Hi-C. Mol Cell 70:188-189
Ichida, Justin K; Staats, Kim A; Davis-Dusenbery, Brandi N et al. (2018) Comparative genomic analysis of embryonic, lineage-converted and stem cell-derived motor neurons. Development 145:
Maass, Philipp G; Barutcu, A Rasim; Shechner, David M et al. (2018) Spatiotemporal allele organization by allele-specific CRISPR live-cell imaging (SNP-CLING). Nat Struct Mol Biol 25:176-184
Choi, Jiho; Clement, Kendell; Huebner, Aaron J et al. (2017) DUSP9 Modulates DNA Hypomethylation in Female Mouse Pluripotent Stem Cells. Cell Stem Cell 20:706-719.e7
Melé, Marta; Mattioli, Kaia; Mallard, William et al. (2017) Chromatin environment, transcriptional regulation, and splicing distinguish lincRNAs and mRNAs. Genome Res 27:27-37
Smith, Zachary D; Shi, Jiantao; Gu, Hongcang et al. (2017) Epigenetic restriction of extraembryonic lineages mirrors the somatic transition to cancer. Nature 549:543-547

Showing the most recent 10 out of 62 publications