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Genome-Scale CRISPRa Screen Identifies Novel Factors for Cellular Reprogramming.

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Yang, Jian 
Rajan, Sandeep S 
Friedrich, Mathias J 
Lan, Guocheng 
Zou, Xiangang 

Abstract

Primed epiblast stem cells (EpiSCs) can be reverted to a pluripotent embryonic stem cell (ESC)-like state by expression of single reprogramming factor. We used CRISPR activation to perform a genome-scale, reprogramming screen in EpiSCs and identified 142 candidate genes. Our screen validated a total of 50 genes, previously not known to contribute to reprogramming, of which we chose Sall1 for further investigation. We show that Sall1 augments reprogramming of mouse EpiSCs and embryonic fibroblasts and that these induced pluripotent stem cells are indeed fully pluripotent including formation of chimeric mice. We also demonstrate that Sall1 synergizes with Nanog in reprogramming and that overexpression in ESCs delays their conversion back to EpiSCs. Lastly, using RNA sequencing, we identify and validate Klf5 and Fam189a2 as new downstream targets of Sall1 and Nanog. In summary, our work demonstrates the power of using CRISPR technology in understanding molecular mechanisms that mediate complex cellular processes such as reprogramming.

Description

Keywords

CRISPR activation, CRISPR screen, CRISPR/Cas9, activation screen, epiblast stem cells, gain-of-function, genome-wide screen, induced pluripotent stem cells, reprogramming, reprogramming pathways, Animals, Biomarkers, CRISPR-Cas Systems, Cell Line, Cellular Reprogramming, Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, Gene Dosage, Genome-Wide Association Study, Germ Layers, Humans, Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells, Mice, Octamer Transcription Factor-3, Pluripotent Stem Cells, Transcription Factors

Journal Title

Stem Cell Reports

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2213-6711
2213-6711

Volume Title

12

Publisher

Elsevier BV