Transcriptional Profiles of Imprinted Genes in Human Embryonic Stem Cells During In vitro Differentiation

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Genomic imprinting is an inheritance phenomenon by which a subset of genes are expressed from one allele of two homologous chromosomes in a parent of origin-specific manner. Even though fine-tuned regulation of genomic imprinting process is essential for normal development, no other means are available to study genomic imprinting in human during embryonic development. In relation with this bottleneck, differentiation of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) into specialized lineages may be considered as an alternative to mimic human development. METHODS AND RESULTS: In this study, hESCs were differentiated into three lineage cell types to analyze temporal and spatial expression of imprinted genes. Of 19 imprinted genes examined, 15 imprinted genes showed similar transcriptional level among two hESC lines and two human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC) lines. Expressional patterns of most imprinted genes were varied in progenitors and fully differentiated cells which were derived from hESCs. Also, no consistence was observed in the expression pattern of imprinted genes within an imprinting domain during in vitro differentiation of hESCs into three lineage cell types. CONCLUSIONS: Transcriptional expression of imprinted genes is regulated in a cell type- specific manner in hESCs during in vitro differentiation.