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Updated: Apr 3, 2026

Culturing Human Pluripotent and Neural Stem Cells in an Enclosed Cell Culture System for Basic and Preclinical Research
Published on: June 10, 2016
Autophagic response to cell culture stress in pluripotent stem cells
Siân Gregory1, Sushma Swamy1, Zoe Hewitt1
1Centre for Stem Cell Biology, Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Sheffield, S10 2TN, United Kingdom.
Abstract:
Autophagy is an important conserved cellular process, both constitutively as a recycling pathway for long lived proteins and as an upregulated stress response. Recent findings suggest a fundamental role for autophagic processes in the maintenance of pluripotent stem cell function. In human embryonic stem cells (hESCS), autophagy was investigated by transfection of LC3-GFP to visualize autophagosomes and with an antibody to LC3B protein. The presence of the primary cilium (PC) in hESCs as the site of recruitment of autophagy-related proteins was also assessed. HESCs (mShef11) in vitro displayed basal autophagy which was upregulated in response to deprivation of culture medium replacement. Significantly higher levels of autophagy were exhibited on spontaneous differentiation of hESCs in vitro. The PC was confirmed to be present in hESCs and therefore may serve to coordinate autophagy function.
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