Speaker: Niels Galjart, Ph. D., Principal Investigator, Department of Cell Biology, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Presentation
Organizers: IRB Barcelona
Date: Thursday, 12th December, 14:30h
Place: Fèlix Serratosa, Parc Cientific de Barcelona
Host: Jens Lüders, PhD., Group Leader, IRB Barcelona, Mechanisms of Disease Programme.
Abstract: Mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs) can be maintained in a pluripotent state in medium containing inhibitors of the kinases GSK3 and MEK. While the contributions of nuclear factors to “ground state” pluripotency under “2i” conditions have been intensely investigated, the role of the cytoplasm in coordinating activities is less well understood. The microtubule (MT) plus-end tracking protein CLASP2 is a potent MT growth promoting factor in vitro, and has been shown to selectively stabilize MTs in regions of cells where GSK3 is locally inactivated. CLASP2 is also involved in MT nucleation at the Golgi. In vivo studies with Clasp2 knockout mice revealed an important role for CLASP2 in hematopoietic stem cell maintenance. Based on these observations we decided to examine the function of CLASP2 in pluripotent mESCs, where GSK3 is constitutively inhibited, in principle leading to the continuous activation of the MT growth-promoting activity of CLASP2. In this seminar I will describe our results on this topic, which reveal a novel function for CLASP2 and suggest how it acts at the molecular level to maintain mESC pluripotency.
Extraordinary MOD's Programme Seminar