Left: Embryonic stem cells with silencing of viruses. Right: Removal of silencing machineries Cha1fa and Sumo2 resulting in the activation of viruses (in green). Credit: Jonathan Loh, A*STAR’s Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology
The groundbreaking discovery could potentially advance stem cell therapeutics and diagnostics. Several stem cell types including embryonic and haematopoietic stem cells are known to be capable of suppressing the activities of infected viruses and viral DNA residing in the host genome. This property, called proviral silencing, has not been fully understood. In order to study this, a team of scientists from IMCB designed a novel assay which allowed them to screen all the genes present in embryonic stem cells.
The team identified 303 genes and elucidated 148 biolo...
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