Human Gene Set: WONG_EMBRYONIC_STEM_CELL_CORE


Standard name WONG_EMBRYONIC_STEM_CELL_CORE
Systematic name M7079
Brief description The 'core ESC-like gene module': genes coordinately up-regulated in a compendium of mouse embryonic stem cells (ESC) which are shared with the human ESC-like module.
Full description or abstract Self-renewal is a hallmark of stem cells and cancer, but existence of a shared stemness program remains controversial. Here, we construct a gene module map to systematically relate transcriptional programs in embryonic stem cells (ESCs), adult tissue stem cells, and human cancers. This map reveals two predominant gene modules that distinguish ESCs and adult tissue stem cells. The ESC-like transcriptional program is activated in diverse human epithelial cancers and strongly predicts metastasis and death. c-Myc, but not other oncogenes, is sufficient to reactivate the ESC-like program in normal and cancer cells. In primary human keratinocytes transformed by Ras and I kappa B alpha, c-Myc increases the fraction of tumor-initiating cells by 150-fold, enabling tumor formation and serial propagation with as few as 500 cells. c-Myc-enhanced tumor initiation is cell-autonomous and independent of genomic instability. Thus, activation of an ESC-like transcriptional program in differentiated adult cells may induce pathologic self-renewal characteristic of cancer stem cells.
Collection C2: Curated
      CGP: Chemical and Genetic Perturbations
Source publication Pubmed 18397753   Authors: Wong DJ,Liu H,Ridky TW,Cassarino D,Segal E,Chang HY
Exact source Table 6S: Human Entrez Gene ID
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Source species Homo sapiens
Contributed by Nikolaos Papanikolaou (Aristoteles University of Thessaloniki)
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Human_NCBI_Gene_ID
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Version history 3.0: First introduced

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