Human pluripotent stem cells: From biology to cell therapy

Figure 1 Visualization of gene expression in PSCs and comparison with somatic cells. A: The Amazonia! web Atlas interface (http://www.amazonia.transcriptome.eu); B: Expression bar plots, generated with Amazonia!, for RPL13, a ubiquitously expressed gene, OCT4/POU5F1 and CLAUDIN 6 as highly PSC-specific genes, FGF2, a major human PSC growth factor expressed as an autocrine loop and by human fibroblast cells, and GREMLIN 1, an inhibitor of BMPs secreted by human fibroblast feeder cells. ES: Human embryonic stem cells; iPS cells: Induced pluripotent stem cells; hFF: Human foreskin fibroblasts; OV: Ovary & oocytes samples; TE: Testis; NS : Nervous system; SK: Skin; LU: Normal lung; DT: Digestive tract; KP: Kidney & prostate; HM: Heart & muscle; JO: Joint; HE: Normal hematological samples; UT: Uterus; PSCs: Pluripotent stem cells. Y-axis is the microarray signal value, obtained by MAS5 normalization with a TGT at 100 using Expression Console (Affymetrix, Santa-Clara, CA).

Figure 2 Model explaining the role of the major human PSC growth factors identified to date, FGF2 and TGFβ/Activin, based on Vallier et al[36] and Xu et al[43].