Intermittent ERK oscillations downstream of FGF in mouse embryonic stem cells

Signal transduction networks generate characteristic dynamic activities to process extracellular signals and guide cell fate decisions such as to divide or differentiate. The differentiation of pluripotent cells is controlled by FGF/ERK signaling. However, only a few studies have addressed the dynamic activity of the FGF/ERK signaling network in pluripotent cells at high time resolution. Here, we use live cell sensors in wild-type and Fgf4-mutant mouse embryonic stem cells to measure dynamic ERK activity in single cells, for defined ligand concentrations and differentiation states. These sensors reveal pulses of ERK activity. Pulsing patterns are heterogeneous between individual cells. Consecutive pulse sequences occur more frequently than expected from simple stochastic models. Sequences become more prevalent with higher ligand concentration, but are rarer in more differentiated cells. Our results suggest that FGF/ERK signaling operates in the vicinity of a transition point between oscillatory and non-oscillatory dynamics in embryonic stem cells. The resulting heterogeneous dynamic signaling activities add a new dimension to cellular heterogeneity that may be linked to divergent fate decisions in stem cell cultures.