Contribution of 3D Chromatin Architecture to the Maintenance of Pluripotency

Abstract

Maintenance of pluripotency, lineage commitment and differentiation of mammalian embryonic stem cells into all somatic cell types involves differential regulation of different subsets of genes, as does reprogramming of somatic cells back into a pluripotent state. It is now understood that the three-dimensional organization of the human genome asserts a key role in these processes in two ways. First, by providing a largely invariable scaffold onto which dynamic changes in chromatin may manifest; second, by allowing the spatial clustering of genes contributing to the same functional pathways. In this review, we discuss the rapidly growing volume of literature on the structure-to-function relationship of mammalian genomes as regards key developmental transitions of stem cell populations.