Fine-tuning ERK activity enables proliferation-differentiation balance during lineage specification of human embryonic stem cells - PubMed
5 hours ago
- #stem cell differentiation
- #ERK signaling
- #cell proliferation
- ERK activity is crucial for balancing proliferation and lineage specification in human embryonic stem cells.
- Multiplex quantitative live-cell imaging was used to study differentiation into mesendoderm (ME), a high ERK activity-dependent lineage.
- Different morphogen combinations produce varying ERK activity levels, leading to heterogeneous ME fate choices despite uniform cell cycle dynamics.
- Engineered synthetic ERK activities showed that ERK fine-tunes ME differentiation potential and cell division speed in nonoverlapping ranges.
- Transcriptional and translational sensitivities of ME-specifying genes versus cell cycle genes to ERK input explain the uncoupling of differentiation and proliferation.