Sox2是维持胚胎干细胞多能性的一种关键的转录因子，同时也是神经细胞的一种重要标记因子。已有部分工作研究Sox2蛋白在胚胎干细胞及神经祖细胞发挥不同作用的机制。染色质高级结构是调控基因表达的重要方式，然而在此过程中Sox2 增强子是否会通过与不同的染色质相互作用来发挥功能却没有任何研究。我们推测在小鼠胚胎干细胞多能性维持和分化过程中，Sox2 不同增强子具有动态变化的特异性的染色质高级结构，这种高级结构对Sox2功能的转变及细胞状态的维持具有重要功能。因此，在本工作中我们首先将小鼠胚胎干细胞、神经分化中的细胞、神经祖（干）细胞等利用Capture C技术分析不同状态细胞中Sox2不同增强子染色质高级结构的动态变化，然后研究这些染色质高级结构及相互作用的基因在这些过程中的生物学功能，最后我们期望通过特异性改变染色质高级结构来调控细胞状态，以一种全新的方式得到诱导多能干细胞或转分化的神经细胞。

Sox2 is a key pluripotent transcription factor in embryonic stem cells (ES cells) and is also an important marker for neural cells. Some previous work has been published to study the mechanisms of diverse functions of Sox2 in ES cells and neural progenitor cells. However, until now there has been no work to investigate the roles of chromosomal interactions of Sox2 enhancers during these processes. We hypothesize that different Sox2 enhancers have specific and dynamic long-range chromosomal interactions during self-renewal and neural differentiation of mouse ES cells, which is important for the transformation of Sox2 functions and the status maintenance of different cells. In this work, we’ll first apply Capture C technology to analyze the dynamic changes of the high-order chromatin structure of Sox2 enhancers in mouse ES cells, neural differentiating cells, neural progenitor cells and neural stem cells, and then examine the biological functions of these high-order chromatin structures and of the interacted genes. Finally, we expect to control cell status and get induced pluripotent cells or induced neuronal cells through specifically changing the long-range chromatin interactions.