Cell Death and Differentiation (2006) 13, 564–575 & 2006 Nature Publishing Group All rights reserved 1350-9047/06 $30.00 www.nature.com/cdd Apoptosis and differentiation commitment: novel insights revealed by gene profiling studies in mouse embryonic stem cells D Duval1,2,4, M Trouillas3,4, C Thibault2, D Dembele´ 2, Introduction F Diemunsch2, B Reinhardt2, AL Mertz2, A Dierich2 Mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells, which are maintained and H Bœuf*,3 pluripotent in vitro with leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) cytokine, are instrumental to study LIF-dependent cell 1 UMR5096-CNRS/UP/IRD, Perpignan, France 2 IGBMC/CNRS/INSERM, Strasbourg, France pluripotency as well as the first steps of differentiation 3 UMR-5164-CNRS-CIRID/Universite´ Bordeaux2, Bordeaux, France commitment triggered upon LIF starvation. As we recently 4 These authors contributed equally to this work reported, these cells could also be used to unravel the early * Corresponding author: H Bœuf, UMR-5164-CNRS-CIRID, Universite´ steps of apoptosis, a physiological cell death process Bordeaux2, Bat.1B, BP14, 146 rue Le´o Saignat, 33076 Bordeaux, France. occurring during the first embryogenesis stages. Indeed, the Tel: þ 05 57 57 46 33; Fax: þ 05 57 57 14 72; formation of the cavities, which starts at the blastocyst stage, E-mail:helene.bœ
[email protected] is dependent on a specific cell death program, which includes caspase 3 cleavage and induction of the apoptosis-inducing Received 10.3.05; revised 01.9.05; accepted 01.9.05; published online 25.11.05 1 Edited by R De Maria factor (AIF)-complex proteins.