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J. Biol. Chem., Vol. 283, Issue 8, 4480-4489, February 22, 2008

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Aromatic Residues in the C-terminal Domain 2 Are Required for Nanog to Mediate LIF-independent Self-renewal of Mouse Embryonic Stem Cells^*

Zhe Wang, Tianhua Ma, Xiaoke Chi, and Duanqing Pei¹

From the Stem Cell and Cancer Biology Group, Laboratory of Regenerative Biology, South China Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, Guangzhou Institute of Biomedicine and Health, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510663, China and the Laboratory of Stem Cell Biology, Department of Biological Sciences & Biotechnology, State Key Laboratory of Biomembrane and Membrane Biotechnology, Institutes of Biomedicine, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

Nanog was identified by its ability to sustain the LIF-independent self-renewal of mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells and has recently been shown to play a role in reprogramming adult fibroblasts into pluripotent stem cells. However, little is known about the structural basis of these remarkable activities of Nanog. We have previously identified an unusually strong transactivator named CD2 at its C terminus. Here we demonstrate that CD2 is required for Nanog to mediate ES cell self-renewal. Furthermore, deletion and point mutation analysis revealed that CD2 relies on at least seven aromatic amino acid residues to generate its potent transactivating activity. A mutant Nanog bearing alanine substitutions for these seven residues fails to confer LIF-independent self-renewal in mouse ES cells. Substitution of CD2 by the viral transactivator VP16 gave rise to Nanog-VP16, which is 10 times more active than wild-type Nanog in ES cells. Surprisingly, the expression of Nanog-VP16 in mouse ES cells induces differentiation and is thus unable to sustain LIF-independent self-renewal for mouse ES cells. Taken together, our results demonstrate that the CD2 domain of Nanog is a unique transactivator that utilizes aromatic residues to confer specific activity absolutely required for ES self-renewal.

Received for publication, July 23, 2007 , and in revised form, November 28, 2007.

^* This work was supported in part by National Natural Science Foundation of China Grants 30630039, MOST 2006CB943600, and 2006CB701504 and by Chinese Academy of Sciences Grant KSCX2-YW-R-48. The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.

¹ To whom correspondence should be addressed: Guangzhou Institute of Biomedicine and Health, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, China 510663. Tel.: 011-86-20-3229-0706; E-mail: pei_duanqing{at}gibh.ac.cn.

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