Elucidating the Diverse Biochemical Potency of Human OCT4

我们的建议是基于我们团队最近的发现，这些发现定义了人类细胞命运从一个体细胞到另一个体细胞的直接改变。我们的计划现在扩展和过渡到生化和化学方法，以使用自然科学方法控制和设计这一过程。我们专注于单个转录因子，人OCT4，它代表了控制转录激活/抑制的最多样化的自我调节因子。Oct4被描述为仅限于植入前的胚胎和生殖细胞，在胚胎干细胞和从激活天然OCT4的成熟细胞诱导多能性中发挥关键作用，被称为诱导多能干细胞。

Our proposal is based on our recent discoveries pioneered by our group that define direct human cell fate alteration from one somatic cell to another. Our program now makes the extension and transition to biochemical and chemical methods to control and engineer this process using natural science approaches. We focus on a single transcription factor (TF), human OCT4, which represents the most diverse self-regulating factor controlling transcriptional activation/repression. OCT4 has been described as being restricted to preimplantation embryos and germ cells, and plays a critical role in embryonic stem cells and induction of pluripotency from mature cells activating native OCT4, known as induced pluripotent stem cells.