Tracing and Capturing the Epiblast Pluripotency of Sheep Preimplantation Embryos
Capturing different pluripotent state stem cells from epiblast in vitro helps understand embryonic development and provides invaluable cell sources for basic research and regenerative medicine. Sheep are not only one of the most important livestock species in agriculture but also serve as an ideal preclinical model for studying human disease. Single-cell transcriptome analysis of sheep preimplantation embryos from embryonic day (E) 1 to E14 is performed to investigate the pluripotency changes of epiblast and elucidate the pluripotent regulation signaling. By combination of growth factors or inhibitors of JAK/STAT3, FGF, WNT, and TGF-β pathways in the culture medium, sheep formative and primed pluripotent stem cells (sfPSCs and spPSCs) are established respectively. The newly derived PSCs could maintain over 100 passages and differentiate into three germ layers. In addition, sfPSCs and spPSCs exhibit different molecular features, and sfPSCs have the ability of contribution to ICM and can be used as donor cells for producing cloned embryos efficiently. A cross-species comparison of early embryo development in mouse, pig and sheep illustrates the conservation of the epiblast naïve to primed state transition process and the divergence of the developmental events time points, the specific gene expression patterns and pluripotent regulation signaling. These studies are expected to improve our understanding of mammal early embryo development and present a reference for defining pluripotency.
Authors
- Xiaosheng Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9719-0573)
- Fan Zhao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8164-5016)
- Xinze Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-4470-7838)
- Runbo Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4196-1997)
- Yixuan Yao
- Qiuyue Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6643-1730)
- Rui-jie Luo
- Wenjie Jiang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7856-6544)
- Suying Cao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3585-1430)
- Jianyong Han (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9549-3279)
- Shunxin Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7044-2758)
- Minglei Zhi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0609-869X)
- Tianzhi Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2481-6448)
- Yingjie Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5041-8550)
- Meng Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9730-5550)
- Tingting Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2754-9784)
- Haitao Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2436-113X)
- Jinlong Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4326-5087)
- Jinying Zhang
- Jinghui Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1233-8255)
- Shuai Gao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5651-2687)
- Pengcheng He
- Yuhan Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4177-6396)
- Zhiqiang Feng
- Haiping Xu
- Yuchang Yao
- Zimo Zhao
- Qiang Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7882-5489)
- Hanyue Su (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9760-6567)
Institutions
- Northeast Agricultural University (CN)
- Xiamen University (CN)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology (CN)
- Beijing University of Agriculture (CN)
- Institute of Animal Sciences (CN)
- Tianjin Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CN)
- China Agricultural University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Advanced Science
- Published
- 2025-06-30
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.202417764
- Citations
- 2
- Primary Topic
- Pluripotent Stem Cells Research
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 1.61
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- China Agricultural University
- National Science and Technology Major Project
- National Key Research and Development Program of China