Comparison of the molecular profiles of human embryonic and isogenic induced pluripotent stem cells. [Illumina]

Many studies have compared the genetic and epigenetic profiles of human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) to human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) and yet the picture remains unclear. To address this, we derived a population of neural precursor cells (NPCs) from the H1 (WA01) hESC line and generated isogenic iPSC lines by reprogramming. The gene expression and methylation profile of three lines were compared to the parental line and intermediate NPC population. We found no gene probe with expression that differed significantly between hESC and iPSC samples under undifferentiated or differentiated conditions. Analysis of the global methylation pattern also showed no significant difference between the two PSC populations. Both undifferentiated populations were distinctly different from the intermediate NPC population in both gene expression and methylation profiles. One point to note is that H1 is a male line and so extrapolation to female lines should be cautioned. However, these data confirm our previous findings that there are no significant differences between hESCs and hiPSCs at the gene expression or methylation level. 12 samples: 1 human NPC, 5 human ESC (UNDIFF), 6 human iPSC (UNDIFF)

已有诸多研究对比了人类诱导多能干细胞（human induced pluripotent stem cells, hiPSCs）与人类胚胎干细胞（human embryonic stem cells, hESCs）的遗传及表观遗传特征，但目前学界对二者的差异仍未形成清晰认知。为解决这一问题，本研究从H1（WA01）人类胚胎干细胞系中衍生得到神经前体细胞（neural precursor cells, NPCs）群体，并通过重编程技术构建了同基因诱导多能干细胞系。随后将3株细胞系的基因表达谱与甲基化特征，与亲本细胞系及中间态神经前体细胞群体进行对比分析。结果显示，无论处于未分化还是分化状态，人类胚胎干细胞与诱导多能干细胞样本间均未出现表达水平存在显著差异的基因探针。全局甲基化模式分析同样表明，两类多能干细胞（pluripotent stem cells, PSCs）群体之间不存在显著差异。两类未分化细胞群体在基因表达与甲基化谱层面，均与中间态神经前体细胞群体存在显著差异。需特别注意的是，H1细胞系为雄性细胞系，因此将本研究结果外推至雌性细胞系时需谨慎。不过本研究数据验证了此前的研究结论：在基因表达或甲基化水平上，人类胚胎干细胞与诱导多能干细胞之间不存在显著差异。本数据集共包含12份样本：1份人类神经前体细胞样本、5份未分化人类胚胎干细胞样本、6份未分化人类诱导多能干细胞样本。