RESEARCH ARTICLE
RNA Genes: Retroelements and Virally Retroposable microRNAs in Human Embryonic Stem Cells
Yoichi R. Fujii*
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2010Volume: 4
First Page: 63
Last Page: 75
Publisher Id: TOVJ-4-63
DOI: 10.2174/1874357901004010063
Article History:
Received Date: 14/1/2010Revision Received Date: 15/4/2010
Acceptance Date: 20/4/2010
Electronic publication date: 25/5/2010
Collection year: 2010
open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) are capable of undergoing self-renewal, and their developmental ability is known as the stemness. Recently, microRNAs (miRNAs) as regulators have been isolated from ESCs. Although Dicer and DiGeorge syndrome critical region gene 8 (DGCR8) are essential factors for the biogeneration of miRNA, Dicer-knockout (KO) ESCs have showed to fail to express differentiation markers and DGCR8-KO ESCs have showed to be arrest in the G1 phase. Furthermore, Dicer-KO ESCs lost the ability to epigenetically silence retroelemtns (REs). REs are expressed and transposed in ESCs, whose transcripts control expression of miRNAs, and their transposable retroelement (TE) expression is, therefore related to ESC proliferation and differentiation, suggesting that the interplay between miRNAs and REs may have a deep responsibility for the stemness including a short G1/S transition and for RE regulation in ESCs.