Contribution of stochastic partitioning at human embryonic stem cell division to NANOG heterogeneity

Heterogeneity is an often unappreciated characteristic of stem cell populations yet its importance in fate determination is becoming increasingly evident. Although gene expression noise has received greater attention as a source of non-genetic heterogeneity, the effects of stochastic partitioning of cellular material during mitosis on population variability have not been researched to date. We examined self-renewing human embryonic stem cells (hESCs), which typically exhibit a dispersed distribution of the pluripotency marker NANOG. In conjunction with our experiments, a multiscale cell population balance equation (PBE) model was constructed accounting for transcriptional noise and stochastic partitioning at division as sources of population heterogeneity. Cultured hESCs maintained time-invariant profiles of size and NANOG expression and the data were utilized for parameter estimation. Contributions from both sources considered in this study were significant on the NANOG profile, although elimination of the gene expression noise resulted in greater changes in the dispersion of the NANOG distribution. Moreover, blocking of division by treating hESCs with nocodazole or colcemid led to a 39% increase in the average NANOG content and over 68% of the cells had higher NANOG level than the mean NANOG expression of untreated cells. Model predictions, which were in excellent agreement with these findings, revealed that stochastic partitioning accounted for 17% of the total noise in the NANOG profile of self-renewing hESCs. The computational framework developed in this study will aid in gaining a deeper understanding of how pluripotent stem/progenitor cells orchestrate processes such as gene expression and proliferation for maintaining their pluripotency or differentiating along particular lineages. Such models will be essential in designing and optimizing efficient differentiation strategies and bioprocesses for the production of therapeutically suitable stem cell progeny.