TY - JOUR T1 - Comparative functional genomics identifies unique molecular features of EPSCs JF - Life Science Alliance JO - Life Sci. Alliance DO - 10.26508/lsa.202201608 VL - 5 IS - 11 SP - e202201608 AU - Vikas Malik AU - Ruge Zang AU - Alejandro Fuentes-Iglesias AU - Xin Huang AU - Dan Li AU - Miguel Fidalgo AU - Hongwei Zhou AU - Jianlong Wang Y1 - 2022/11/01 UR - https://www.life-science-alliance.org/content/5/11/e202201608.abstract N2 - Extended pluripotent or expanded potential stem cells (EPSCs) possess superior developmental potential to embryonic stem cells (ESCs). However, the molecular underpinning of EPSC maintenance in vitro is not well defined. We comparatively studied transcriptome, chromatin accessibility, active histone modification marks, and relative proteomes of ESCs and the two well-established EPSC lines to probe the molecular foundation underlying EPSC developmental potential. Despite some overlapping transcriptomic and chromatin accessibility features, we defined sets of molecular signatures that distinguish EPSCs from ESCs in transcriptional and translational regulation as well as metabolic control. Interestingly, EPSCs show similar reliance on pluripotency factors Oct4, Sox2, and Nanog for self-renewal as ESCs. Our study provides a rich resource for dissecting the regulatory network that governs the developmental potency of EPSCs and exploring alternative strategies to capture totipotent stem cells in culture. ER -