Determination of genes affected by HERVH depletion

The unique cellular state of embryonic stem cells is maintained by pluripotency-associated transcription factors such as OCT4. The transcriptional regulatory circuitries between human and mouse pluripotent stem cells exhibit notable differences. Transposable elements have altered the pluripotency network by contributing new cis-regulatory elements to mammalian genomes. In our study, we found that the expression of HERVH is enriched in human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) and depletion of HERVH in hESCs induced differentiation. To confirm the differentiation phenotype and identify potential downstream target genes of HERVH, we conducted the microarray analysis on hESCs treated with control shRNA against Luciferase and shRNA against HERVH. Total RNA was extracted from cells treated with control shRNA or HERVH shRNA for 5 days. 3 replicates each.