A central role for TFIID in the pluripotent transcription circuitry [PP003]. Mus musculus

Pluripotent stem cells can be isolated from early embryos or induced by cell fusion, somatic nuclear transfer, or expression of a selected set of transcription factors. Embryonic stem (ES) cells are characterized by an open chromatin configuration and high transcription levels achieved via autoregulatory and feed-forward transcription factor loops. How the general transcription machinery is involved in pluripotency is unclear. Here, we show that TFIID knockdown affected the pluripotent circuitry in ES cells and inhibited reprogramming of fibroblasts. TFIID and pluripotency factors form a feed-forward loop to induce and maintain a stable transcription state. Strikingly, transient expression of TFIID subunits greatly enhanced reprogramming by Oct4, Sox2, Klf4 and c-Myc reaching efficiencies upto 50%. These results show that TFIID is a critical and selective component for transcription factor-mediated reprogramming. We anticipate that by creating plasticity in gene expression programs, basal transcription complexes such as TFIID assist reprogramming into different cellular states. Overall design: Three iPS lines, iPS#1, iPS#4, and iPS#5 were used in duplicate for microarray analysis against a pool of RNA from ES-cells.