Epigenetic of Somatic Cells Reprogramming

Abstract

Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) is a highly undifferentiated pluripotent cells, can differentiate into various cells. Stem cell therapy is an opportunity of the human regenerative medicine, and also a focus of medical research. While the source of embryonic stem cells is controversial in ethics, which indirectly promotes the technology development of somatic cell reprogramming and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). Although iPSCs can produce healthy mature individuals, there are still some limitations, such as the success rate of iPSCs is very low and the problem of tumorigenicity. ESCs and iPSCs have difference in gene expression level and the potential mechanism of epigenetic regulation. In the process of cell differentiation and development, DNA sequence has no change, which means the specific epigenetic modifications (DNA methylation, histone modifications, miRNA and lncRNA) plays an important role in the pluripotent maintenance and differentiation of ESCs and iPSCs. In this review, we discussed the regulation effect of various epigenetic modifications in the pluripotent maintenance and differentiation of ESCs and iPSCs, and the relationship between epigenetic modifications and somatic reprogramming is also discussed. We think, based on the various omics data produced by next generation sequencing, developing bioinformatics methods will greatly promote the stem cell research and its clinical application.