Bovine formative embryonic stem cell plasticity in embryonic and extraembryonic differentiation
Bovine embryonic stem cells (bESCs) can greatly enhance the understanding of bovine embryonic development and applications for disease-resistance, biomedical, and zoonotic pre-clinical models. However, formative bESCs with distinct morphology and complete differentiation capacity are still unreported. We document here the generation of formative bESCs (bFSCs) which are pluripotent both in vitro and in vivo, and efficiently converted into neural progenitor cells (NPCs) and primordial germ cell-like cells (PGCLCs) by direct differentiation. Transcriptomic analysis reveals these cells exhibited distinct metabolic features from human and mouse ESCs and early embryos. bFSCs contributed to a wide range of cell types within embryonic and extraembryonic tissues after aggregating with mouse and bovine embryos, as confirmed by chimeric experiment and single cell RNA-seq (scRNA-seq). The establishment of bFSCs with dual developmental plasticity represents a milestone for agricultural biotechnology and decoding the underlying mechanism of bona fide bovine pluripotency.
Authors
- Shiyao Han
- Yiyu Zhao
- Guangsheng Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-6465-2290)
- Chuzhao Lei (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1647-1037)
- Jingyue Duan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6416-2250)
- Wenjing Wan
- Yan Luo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9849-0516)
- Young Tang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6188-7758)
- Liangliang Jin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4084-2638)
- Xiangyan Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-1202-4112)
- Deborah Kaback
- Yifei Fang
- Yue Su (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6987-3737)
- N. Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7847-3567)
- Zhen Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6851-5874)
- Jiaxi Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8807-2479)
- Peng Xiao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5124-1232)
- Neha Mishra (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5436-7946)
- Ruifeng Zhao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1874-3681)
- Xiuchun Tian (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8441-2154)
- Jiaqi Zhu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9472-4074)
- Siu Pok Yee
- Meiao Renxiu
Institutions
- University of Connecticut (US)
- Cornell University (US)
- Ningxia University (CN)
- North West Agriculture and Forestry University (CN)
- New York State College of Agriculture & Life Sciences (US)
- UConn Health (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Stem Cells
- Published
- 2025-10-21
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1093/stmcls/sxaf068
- Primary Topic
- Pluripotent Stem Cells Research
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00