Endogenous Wnt proteins induce differentiation and loss of pluripotency in EpiSCs

We compared the transcriptomes of EpiSCs maintained in the presence or absence of Wnt pathway inhibitor IWP2. We screened also our gene expression data for potential markers for genuine EpiSCs, maintained in the presence of Wnt inhibition and compared with ESC expression data. We compared the transcriptomes of EpiSCs maintained in the presence or absence of IWP2. The high level of Wnt-induced differentiation occurring in conventional EpiSC cultures may have interfered with the analysis of their characteristics. By applying Wnt inhibitors we are now able to establish the properties of genuine EpiSCs. We compared the gene expression profiles of conventional EpiSCs, genuine EpiSCs, and ESCs using Affymetrix Genechip analysis. This revealed a set of genes that is expressed lower in genuine EpiSCs compared to conventional EpiSCs.