Vodnala M, Choi EB, Fong YW. Low complexity domains, condensates, and stem cell pluripotency. World J Stem Cells 2021; 13(5): 416-438 [PMID: 34136073 DOI: 10.4252/wjsc.v13.i5.416]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Yick W Fong, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 75 Francis Street, Boston, MA 02115, United States. yfong@bwh.harvard.edu
Research Domain of This Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Article-Type of This Article
Review
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Stem Cells. May 26, 2021; 13(5): 416-438 Published online May 26, 2021. doi: 10.4252/wjsc.v13.i5.416
Low complexity domains, condensates, and stem cell pluripotency
Munender Vodnala, Eun-Bee Choi, Yick W Fong
Munender Vodnala, Eun-Bee Choi, Yick W Fong, Department of Medicine, Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, United States
Yick W Fong, Harvard Stem Cell Institute, Cambridge, MA 02138, United States
Author contributions: Fong YW, Vodnala M and Choi EB wrote and edited the manuscript; Vodnala M made the figures and table; all authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Supported byNational Institute of Health, No. R01HL125527.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflict of interests for this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Yick W Fong, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 75 Francis Street, Boston, MA 02115, United States. yfong@bwh.harvard.edu
Received: March 10, 2021 Peer-review started: March 10, 2021 First decision: April 19, 2021 Revised: April 20, 2021 Accepted: April 28, 2021 Article in press: April 28, 2021 Published online: May 26, 2021
Abstract
Biological reactions require self-assembly of factors in the complex cellular milieu. Recent evidence indicates that intrinsically disordered, low-complexity sequence domains (LCDs) found in regulatory factors mediate diverse cellular processes from gene expression to DNA repair to signal transduction, by enriching specific biomolecules in membraneless compartments or hubs that may undergo liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS). In this review, we discuss how embryonic stem cells take advantage of LCD-driven interactions to promote cell-specific transcription, DNA damage response, and DNA repair. We propose that LCD-mediated interactions play key roles in stem cell maintenance and safeguarding genome integrity.
Core Tip: This review article discusses recent findings regarding the role of low-complexity domain proteins and phase separation in regulating key cellular processes in embryonic stem cells, including transcriptional activation and repression, cellular signaling integration, DNA damage response, and DNA repair.
