Mouse ES cells maintained in different pluripotency-promoting conditions differ in their neural differentiation propensity

Prior to differentiation, embryonic stem (ES) cells in culture are maintained in a so-called undifferentiated state, allowing derivation of multiple downstream cell lineages when induced in a directed manner, which in turn grants these cells their pluripotent state. The current work is based on a simple observation that the initial culture condition for maintaining mouse ES cells in an undifferentiated state does impact on the differentiation propensity of these cells, in this case to a neuronal fate. We point out the importance in judging the pluripotency of a given stem cell culture, as this clearly demonstrated that the undifferentiated state of these cells is not necessarily a pluripotent state, even for a widely used mouse ES cell line. We partly attribute this difference in the initial value of ES cells to the naive-to-primed status of pluripotency, which in turn may affect early events of the differentiation in vitro.