Protein Kinases and Their Inhibitors in Pluripotent Stem Cell Fate Regulation

Figure 1

The core protein kinase signaling pathways for regulating pluripotency. LIF signaling in mESCs activates JAK/STAT3 to induce target genes essential for the naïve pluripotency regulatory network. In contrast, FGF/Erk signaling in hESCs maintains the primed pluripotent state. TGFβ/activin/nodal signaling is essential for maintaining the primed pluripotency, whereas BMP signaling is involved in maintaining the naïve pluripotency with LIF. PI3K/AKT signaling can be activated in both mESCs and hESCs, which maintains pluripotency, indicated by a gray arrow. Red and blue arrows represent naïve and primed pluripotency activation, respectively.