Background
The establishment of porcine pluripotent stem cells (piPSCs) is still a critical topic and challenging issue. However, all piPSCs are extremely sensitive to changes of the culture conditions.In addition, the side effect of inhibitors in culture medium confine the pluripotency and practicability. This study aimed to investigate the roles of AXIN in piPSCs and further explore the mechanism. Here, porcine AXIN1 gene and AXIN2 were knockdown, cloned, and overexpressed in piPSCs. Digital RNA-seq was performed to explore the mechanism of cell proliferation and anti-apoptosis.
Results
Here, we found (1): overexpression of the porcine AXIN2 gene significantly reduce the survivability of piPSCs, meanwhile wreck the pluripotency of piPSCs; (2): The Digital RNA-seq analysis reveals that AXIN2, as a negative effector of the WNT signaling pathway, whom after knockdown enhances the expression of genes involved in cell cycle such as CCND1, and reduced the expression of genes related to cell differentiation, cell death, and cell apoptosis.
Conclusion
AXIN2 could reduce the pluripotency and survival of piPSCs and also provided a potential to simplify the cultrue medium.