The role of microRNAs in rabbit preimplantation embryos and pluripotent stem cells

Abstract

Although several groups are able to generate rabbit embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and induced pluripotency cells (iPS) cell lines using different derivation methods, it is still difficult to establish it, and the pluripotent lines, therefore, remain poorly characterized. Since ESCs are derived from early blastocysts, they can reflect the potential characteristics of their embryonic founder population. Therefore, it is important to compare the expression pattern of both miRNAs and proteins known to play regulatory roles during early lineage specification. Our group aimed to explore ESC-specific miRNA expression pattern from early embryonic stages to rabbit embryonic stem-like (ES-like) cell for the first time to get more insight into their potential regulatory mechanism during embryonic development and in stem cell properties.