Critical role of SOX17 in the hematopoietic development from human embryonic stem cells

Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) are a powerful tool for modeling regenerative therapy. To search for the genes that promote hematopoietic development from human pluripotent stem cell, we overexpressed a list of hematopoietic regulator genes in human pluripotent stem cell-derived CD34+CD43- endothelial cells (ECs) enriched in hemogenic endothelium. Among genes tested, only SOX17, a gene encoding a transcription factor of the SOX family, promoted cell growth and supported expansion of CD34+CD43+CD45-/low cells expressing a hemogenic endothelial maker VE-cadherin. SOX17 was highly expressed in CD34+CD43- ECs but at a low level in CD34+CD43+CD45- pre-hematopoietic progenitor cells (pre-HPCs) and CD34+CD43+CD45+ HPCs. SOX17-overexpressing cells formed sphere-like colonies and generated few hematopoietic progenies. However, they retained hemogenic potential and gave rise to hematopoietic progenies upon inactivation of SOX17. Global gene expression analyses revealed that the CD34+CD43+CD45-/low cells expanded upon overexpression of SOX17 are hemogenic endothelium-like cells developmentally placed between ECs and pre-HPCs. Of interest, SOX17 also reprogrammed both pre-HPCs and HPCs into hemogenic endothelium-like cells. Genome-wide mapping of SOX17 revealed that SOX17 directly activates transcription of key regulator genes for vasculogenesis, hematopoiesis, and erythrocyte differentiation. Depletion of SOX17 in CD34+CD43- ECs severely compromised their hemogenic activity. These findings suggest that SOX17 plays a critical role in priming hemogenic potential in ECs, thereby regulates hematopoietic development from hESCs.

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Nakajima-Takagi Y, Osawa M, Oshima M, Takagi H, Miyagi S, Endoh M, Endo TA, Takayama N, Eto K, Toyoda T, Koseki H, Nakauchi H, Iwama A