Genome-wide mapping of PRDM14 binding sites in human embryonic stem cells. Homo sapiens

PRDM14 belongs to the PR (PRDI-BF1 and RIZ) domain proteins (PRDM) family which is a subclass of the SET domain proteins, a common domain found in histone modifying enzymes. PRDM14 has been previously implicated to regulate self-renewal of hESCs as knock-down of PRDM14 induced expression of differentiation marker genes and altered the cellular morphology. We showed that PRDM14 directly regulates the expression of key pluripotency gene POU5F1. Genome-wide location profiling experiments revealed that PRDM14 co-localized extensively with other key transcription factors such as OCT4, NANOG and SOX2. More importantly, in a gain-of-function assay, we showed that PRDM14 is able to enhance the efficiency of reprogramming of human fibroblasts in conjunction with OCT4, SOX2 and KLF4. Hence, PRDM14 exemplifies a key transcription factor that is required for the maintenance of human ESC identity and the reacquisition of pluripotency in human somatic cells. Overall design: ChIP-seq of PRDM14 in human ESCs