Abstract

Dissecting Pluripotency with esiRNA Libraries Targeting Protein-coding and Long Non-coding RNAs

Frank Buchholz, Professor, University of Technology Dresden

Pluripotent stem cells are important to understand early mammalian development and hold great promise for future regenerative therapies. The identification of factors required to maintain pluripotency is a pivotal step to fully develop these cells for applied purposes and to decipher embryonic differentiation. I will describe the combined use of genome-scale RNAi screens targeting protein coding and long non-coding RNAs with genetic interaction, protein localization and protein-level dependency studies to delineate connectivity between factors that control ES and EpiSC identity. Examples of newly identified protein coding, and long non-coding RNAs that impact on pluripotency will be presented.