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Title: A stochastic and dynamical view of pluripotency in mouse embryonic stem cells

Journal Article · · PLoS Computational Biology (Online)
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [2];  [3]; ORCiD logo [4]
  1. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States). Theoretical Division and Center for Nonlinear Studies; Univ. of Manchester (United Kingdom). School of Physics and Astronomy
  2. Univ. of Manchester (United Kingdom). School of Physics and Astronomy
  3. Rice Univ., Houston, TX (United States). Dept. of Bioengineering
  4. Iowa State Univ., Ames, IA (United States). Dept. of Chemistry

Pluripotent embryonic stem cells are of paramount importance for biomedical sciences because of their innate ability for self-renewal and differentiation into all major cell lines. The fateful decision to exit or remain in the pluripotent state is regulated by complex genetic regulatory networks. The rapid growth of single-cell sequencing data has greatly stimulated applications of statistical and machine learning methods for inferring topologies of pluripotency regulating genetic networks. The inferred network topologies, however, often only encode Boolean information while remaining silent about the roles of dynamics and molecular stochasticity inherent in gene expression. Herein we develop a framework for systematically extending Boolean-level network topologies into higher resolution models of networks which explicitly account for the promoter architectures and gene state switching dynamics. We show the framework to be useful for disentangling the various contributions that gene switching, external signaling, and network topology make to the global heterogeneity and dynamics of transcription factor populations. We find the pluripotent state of the network to be a steady state which is robust to global variations of gene switching rates which we argue are a good proxy for epigenetic states of individual promoters. The temporal dynamics of exiting the pluripotent state, on the other hand, is significantly influenced by the rates of genetic switching which makes cells more responsive to changes in extracellular signals.

Research Organization:
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER). Biological Systems Science Division
Grant/Contract Number:
AC52-06NA25396
OSTI ID:
1627254
Journal Information:
PLoS Computational Biology (Online), Vol. 14, Issue 2; ISSN 1553-7358
Publisher:
Public Library of ScienceCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Cited By (10)

Exact and efficient hybrid Monte Carlo algorithm for accelerated Bayesian inference of gene expression models from snapshots of single-cell transcripts journal July 2019
WASABI: a dynamic iterative framework for gene regulatory network inference journal May 2019
A multiscale model of epigenetic heterogeneity-driven cell fate decision-making journal April 2019
Analysis of Single-Cell Gene Pair Coexpression Landscapes by Stochastic Kinetic Modeling Reveals Gene-Pair Interactions in Development journal January 2020
Mesoscale Liquid Model of Chromatin Recapitulates Nuclear Order of Eukaryotes journal May 2020
Landscape inferred from gene expression data governs pluripotency in embryonic stem cells journal January 2020
Transcriptional Profiling of Stem Cells: Moving from Descriptive to Predictive Paradigms journal August 2019
A system-level mechanistic explanation for asymmetric stem cell fates: Arabidopsis thaliana root niche as a study system journal February 2020
Efficient analysis of stochastic gene dynamics in the non-adiabatic regime using piecewise deterministic Markov processes text January 2017
Generalizing Gillespie's direct method to enable network-free simulations preprint January 2018