Single-cell analysis reveals that expression of Nanog is biallelic and equally variable as that of other pluripotency factors in mouse embryonic stem cells

• Published in: Cell stem cell 2013-07, Vol.13 (1), p.23-29
• Main Authors: Faddah, Dina A., Wang, Haoyi, Cheng, Albert Wu, Katz, Yarden, Buganim, Yosef, Jaenisch, Rudolf
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1934-5909; 1875-9777
• DOI: 10.1016/j.stem.2013.04.019

The homeodomain transcription factor Nanog is a central part of the core pluripotency transcriptional network and plays a critical role in embryonic stem (ES) cell self-renewal. Several reports have suggested that Nanog expression is allelically regulated and that transient down-regulation of Nanog in a subset of pluripotent cells predisposes them towards differentiation. Using single-cell gene expression analyses combined with different reporters for the two alleles of Nanog, we show that Nanog is biallelelically expressed in ES cells independently of culture condition. We also show that the overall variation in endogenous Nanog expression in ES cells is very similar to that of several other pluripotency markers. Our analysis suggests that reporter-based studies of gene expression in pluripotent cells can be significantly influenced by the gene targeting strategy and genetic background employed.