Profiling TRA-1-81 antigen distribution on a human embryonic stem cell

Dengli Qiu, Jialing Xiang, Zhaoxia Li, Aparna Krishnamoorthy, Liaohai Chen, Rong Wang

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

13 Scopus citations

Abstract

Human embryonic stem (hES) cells hold great promise in regenerative medicine. Although hES cells have unlimited self-renewal potential, they tend to differentiate spontaneously in culture. TRA-1-81 is a biomarker of undifferentiated hES cells. Quantitative characterization of TRA-1-81 expression level in a single cell helps capture the "turn-on" signal and understand the mechanism of early differentiation. Here, we report on our examination of TRA-1-81 distribution and association on a hES cell membrane using an atomic force microscope (AFM). Our results suggest that aggregated distribution of TRA-1-81 antigen is characteristic for undifferentiated hES cells. We also evaluated the TRA-1-81 expression level at ∼17,800 epitopes and ∼700 epitopes per cell on an undifferentiated cell and a spontaneously differentiated cell, respectively. The method in this study can be adapted in examining other surface proteins on various cell types, thus providing a general tool for investigating protein distribution and association at the single cell level.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)735-740
Number of pages6
JournalBiochemical and Biophysical Research Communications
Volume369
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 2 May 2008
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Affinity mapping
  • Human embryonic stem cell
  • Protein distribution
  • TRA-1-81

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