Chinese scientists decipher the cell "rejuvenation" QR code

Medical Network December 12th Is there a binary regular password similar to the payment of two-dimensional code in life sciences? The research group of the Institute of Biomedicine and Health of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qi Duanqing, studied the stem cell induction process and found that when the cells were “rejuvenated”, the “on-off” state of chromatin recorded a large amount of information about the process just like the two-dimensional code. By deciphering the intrinsic meaning of these "two-dimensional codes," they illustrate the mechanisms by which stem cell induction processes change. The research results were recently published in "Cell Stem Cells".

After the introduction of the inducing factor, fibroblasts initiate a wonderful unknown procedure to rejuvenate the somatic cells to about 3.5 days after fertilization. This induction of somatic cells into pluripotent stem cells is an ideal system for exploring the mechanism of cell fate transformation. In the past 10 years, scientists all over the world have been studying this wonderful process, but in the deep mechanism research, there is no abstract logic or law.

“The image says that DNA is like an encyclopedia. Every cell carries all the information that can form an individual, but at a certain stage, only part of the book can be opened. Our job is to record from From the somatic cell to the pluripotent stem cell process, the way to open the book, and the research is what 'hand' is in the book," said Li Dongwei, the first author of the paper. They used the ATAC-seq technique to read the "two-dimensional code" of the chromatin "on-off" state and found that the chromatin structure has a function from open to closed (OC) during pluripotency gain and cell fate transition. Close the binary change law to open (CO), and the "two-dimensional code" has been changing throughout the stem cell induction process.

Yan Duanqing introduced that the research team detected the dynamic change pattern of chromatin switch during cell fate transition, and found that the process of “rejuvenation” of cells is accompanied by large-scale chromatin structure rearrangement, which first closes the somatic-specific site and gradually opens more In the process of chromatin structural rearrangement, Sap30 was found to be an important factor in the reprogramming process, which inhibits the key transcription factors of somatic cells by promoting deacetylation modification, thereby promoting cell fate The direction of energy changes. This part of the study reveals for the first time the dynamics of chromatin structure during somatic cell reprogramming and provides a new reference theory model for understanding somatic cell reprogramming and other related cell fate transitions. (Reporter Ye Qing correspondent Huang Bochun)