Nobel Laureate Publishes Study on Cellular Pluripotency Mechanism
Nobel laureate John Gurdon, DPhil, and colleagues published an article in Epigenetics & Chromatin, which details an aspect of direct reprogramming of cells following nuclear transfer. The researchers transferred the nucleus of an adult mouse cell into a frog’s egg, and they attached fluorescent markers in order to observe the activity of histones and chromatin, proteins responsible for the activation of genes. Observation in real-time revealed the essential role histone H3 plays in the activation of a known gene involved in cellular pluripotency. This discovery implies manipulation of H3 may be effective to render a cell pluripotent.