The Defined siRNAs Suppress Nanog and Sox2 Expressions in Mouse ES Cells

Nanog, Oct4 and Sox2 are important transcription factors that are expressed in embryonic stem (ES) cells or embryonic carcinoma (EC) cells, but in most cases they are absent in somatic cells. These factors play a key role to maintain embryonic stem cell self-renew and pluripotency. Down-regulation of Nanog and Sox2 gene expression can change multiple gene expression patterns and signal transduction pathways, and will initiate ES cell differentiation. This study was designed to select the efficient small interfering RNA (siRNA) fragments that inhibit Nanog and Sox2 gene expression in mouse Jl ES cells and P19 EC cells. Among synthesized siRNAs we screened out the siRNAN301 for Nanog and siRNA S720 for Sox2, which not only down-regulated of Nanog and Sox2 gene expression, but also interfered embryoid bodies formation. Our study provided the defined siRNA fragments that could be used to investigate the epigenetic function of Nanog and Sox2 genes.