Establishment of Porcine and Human Expanded Potential Stem Cells (Single-Cell RNA-seq)

Despite intensive efforts, establishing porcine embryonic stem cells have been challenging. We recently derived mouse expanded potential stem cells (EPSCs) from individual blastomeres by inhibiting the activity of critical molecular pathways that predisposes lineage differentiation in the mouse preimplantation embryo. EPSCs had enriched molecular signatures of blastomeres and possessed the developmental potency to all embryonic and extraembryonic cell lineages. In this study, we report the derivation of porcine EPSC (pEPSC) lines either directly from preimplantation embryos or by reprogramming fetal fibroblasts. Under similar culture conditions, human ESCs and iPSCs can be converted, or somatic cells are directly reprogrammed, to EPSCs (hEPSCs) that display the molecular and functional attributes reminiscent of pEPSCs. Here, we performed Single-Cell RNA-seq experiments to characterise the transcriptional heterogeneity of the EPSCs.