Role of STI1 in embryonic stem cells proliferation

• Grant number: 13/23784-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Effective date (Start): January 01, 2014
• Effective date (End): June 30, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Biochemistry - Molecular Biology
• Principal Investigator: Marilene Hohmuth Lopes
• Grantee: Anderson Barbosa Machado
• Host Institution: Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas (ICB). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 11/13906-2 - Contribution of the co-chaperone STI1 in mouse development: embryonic stem cell as approach, AP.JP

Abstract

Several studies have shown that the co-chaperonin Stress Inducible Protein (STI1) associates to prion protein (PrPc), a cell membrane glycoprotein, and this complex participates in processes related to neural plasticity during the embryonic development, raising the hypothesis that STI1 is a regulator molecule with important biological functions in early stages of embryonic development.Recent studies have shown that the deletion of STI1 in mice results in the malformation of embryos after E6.5 and lethality after E10.5, indicating the fundamental STI1 role during the mammal embryonic development.Murine Embryonic Stem Cells (ESCs), derived from Internal Cellular Mass (ICM) located inside the blastocyst (E3.5 murine), are pluripotent and therefore can give rise all cell types of the organism.The cellular lineages derived from ESC are similar to cells derived from epiblast progenitors from ICM, thus, is possible to suggest that the ESCs could mimic an in vitro model of the early epiblast development.It is possible to mimic in vitro the early stages of the development culturing murine ESCs, which in turn becomes an ideal model to study the physiological properties of STI1 in embryonic development.Therefore, the main objective of this study is to evaluate the proliferation capacity of ESCs expressing different levels of STI1.