The role of COUP-TFII in the acquisition of cellular fates during the differentiation od embryonic stem cells

• Grant number: 15/17304-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Master's degree
• Start date: November 01, 2015
• End date: April 30, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Genetics - Animal Genetics
• Principal Investigator: Henrique Marques Barbosa de Souza
• Grantee: Amanda Araujo Gomes Ferreira
• Supervisor: Rudolf Johann Jaenisch
• Host Institution: Instituto de Biologia (IB). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, United States
• Associated to the scholarship: 15/06732-9 - The role of Coup-TFII in the acquisition of cellular fates during the differentiation of embryonic stem cells, BP.MS

Abstract

The capacity of cells to change its molecular and morphological characteristics upon stimuli and generate specific cell types is one of the most intriguing phenomena studied in modern biology. Embryonic stem cells (ESC) are on the center of this research due to its capacity to change from an apparently homogenous population of cells into embryoid bodies containing representatives of all three germ layers, at different stages of cellular differentiation. The nuclear receptor Coup-TFII (Chicken Ovalbumin Upstream Promoter Transcription Factor II) has been shown to be intrinsically involved in the early steps of human ESC differentiation, by forming a regulatory circuit with Oct4 and miRNA302. While Oct4 and miRNA302 repress transcriptionally and post-transcriptionally, respectively, Coup-TFII in undifferentiated hESC, Coup-TFII represses both genes in order to activate cell differentiation programs. In order to further characterize the role of Coup-TFII during early stages of cell fate decision in ESC, we aim to map the spatiotemporal expression of germ layer markers in mouse ESC-derived Embrioid Bodies (EB) at the cellular level, via RNA-FISH and immunostaining in Embryoid Bodies (EBs), in order to correlate these germ layer-specific positive populations with Coup-TFII-positive cells. (AU)