New discovery: "Lipid droplet nirvana" initiates a new model of pluripotent stem cell differentiation

On May 25, Cell Death & Differentiation published online the latest research results of Liu Xingguo's team from Guangzhou Institute of Biomedicine and Health, Chinese Academy of Sciences "Plin2-mediated lipid droplet mobilization accelerates exit from pluripotency by lipidomic remodeling and histone acetylation" (Plin2-mediated lipid droplet mobilization accelerates exit from pluripotency by lipidomic remodeling and histone acetylatio.

Organelle and metabolic remodeling play an important role in stem cell fate determination, not only providing metabolic substrates, but also participating in the regulation of epigenetics and gene expressi.

Lipid droplets are evolutionarily highly conserved organelles composed of neutral lipids surrounded by a monolayer phospholipid membrane and involved in lipid storage and utilizati.

Liu Xingguo's team found that embryonic stem cells (ESCs) have a large number of lipid droplets and maintain a low neutral lipid hydrolysis rate, while the differentiation of pluripotent stem cells is accompanied by an increase in the neutral lipid hydrolysis rate and the disappearance of lipid drople.

This study revealed the function of "lipid droplet nirvana" to burn itself and illuminate the differentiation process of pluripotent stem cells, and found a new mode of interaction between lipid droplet homeostasis and mitochondrial remodeli.

"I leave gently, just as I come gently", pluripotency and lipid droplets accompany all the way, and when pluripotency exits, lipid droplets also "nirvana" disappear, and the developmental process of differentiation into various germ layers begi.

This research was done in cooperation with Fudan University and the Chinese University of Hong Ko.

Paper link

A schematic diagram of lipid droplet-mitochondrial interactions regulating epigenetics and cell fate