Heterogeneity in Oct4 and Sox2 Targets Biases Cell Fate in 4-Cell Mouse Embryos
University of Cambridge · European Bioinformatics Institute · +3 more institutions
Abstract
The major and essential objective of pre-implantation development is to establish embryonic and extra-embryonic cell fates. To address when and how this fundamental process is initiated in mammals, we characterize transcriptomes of all individual cells throughout mouse pre-implantation development. This identifies targets of master pluripotency regulators Oct4 and Sox2 as being highly heterogeneously expressed between blastomeres of the 4-cell embryo, with Sox21 showing one of the most heterogeneous expression profiles. Live-cell tracking demonstrates that cells with decreased Sox21 yield more extra-embryonic than pluripotent progeny. Consistently, decreasing Sox21 results in premature upregulation of the…
Citation impact
- FWCI
- 31.33
- Percentile
- 100%
- References
- 48
Authors
9Topics & keywords
- Biology
- Cell fate determination
- Embryonic stem cell
- Cell biology
- SOX2
- Cellular differentiation
- Embryo
- Cell