From pluripotency to totipotency

2-cell-like cell (green) displayed next to an embryonic stem cell (magenta).

The first results of our collaboration with Maria Elena Torres-Padilla’s lab in Strasbourg see the light today in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology. In this manuscript, we show that the down-regulation of the histone chaperone CAF-1 in embryonic stem cells results in a dramatic increase of 2-cell-like cells in the culture. The resulting cells display many features of early embryonic totipotent cells, such as specific activation of 2-cell embryo gene expression programmes, up-regulation of repetitive elements, and an increased chromatin mobility.

You can read the full details in the NSMB website and here.