Editor's Summary

2 July 2009

Pluripotency and the X chromosome

During both stem cell differentiation and X chromosome inactivation, the process that silences one female X chromosome to ensure gene dosage parity between the sexes, chromatin undergoes epigenetic reprogramming to lock in a new state. Reprogramming of differentiated cells into iPS cells also causes reactivation of the inactivated X chromosome, and it has been proposed that the pluripotency factor Oct4 links both processes. In this study, Donohoe et al. find that Oct4 regulates X-chromosome inactivation by triggering X-chromosome pairing and counting. Oct4 interacts with both noncoding RNA genes (Tsix and Xite) and proteins (Ctcf and Yy1). This work shows that there is a complex network involved in epigenetic reprogramming of the X chromosome in stem cells.

Letter: The pluripotency factor Oct4 interacts with Ctcf and also controls X-chromosome pairing and counting

Mary E. Donohoe, Susana S. Silva, Stefan F. Pinter, Na Xu & Jeannie T. Lee

doi:10.1038/nature08098

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