The C-terminal region of Xpc is dispensable for the transcriptional activity of Oct3/4 in mouse embryonic stem cells

• The C-terminal region of Xpc is dispensable for the maintenance of pluripotency.
• The C-terminal region of Xpc is dispensable for the transcriptional activity of Oct3/4.
• The C-terminal region of Xpc is essential for its DNA repair activity.

The transcription factor Oct3/4 is essential to maintain pluripotency in mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells. It was reported that the Xpc DNA repair complex is involved in this process. Here we examined the role of Xpc on the transcriptional activation of the target genes by Oct3/4 using the inducible knockout strategy. We found that the removal of the C-terminal region of Xpc, including the interaction sites with Rad23 and Cetn2, showed faint impact on the gene expression profile of ES cells and the functional Xpc-ΔC ES cell lines retained proper gene expression profile as well as pluripotency to contribute chimeric embryos. These data indicated that the C-terminal region of Xpc is dispensable for the transcriptional activity of Oct3/4 in mouse ES cells.