Damien Detraux, Marino Caruso, Louise Feller, Maude Fransolet, Sébastien Meurant, Julie Mathieu, Thierry Arnould, Patricia Renard

A critical role for heme synthesis and succinate in the regulation of pluripotent states transitions

  • General Immunology and Microbiology
  • General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
  • General Medicine
  • General Neuroscience
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Using embryonic stem cells (ESCs) in regenerative medicine or in disease modeling requires a complete understanding of these cells. Two main distinct developmental states of ESCs have been stabilized in vitro, a naïve pre-implantation stage and a primed post-implantation stage. Based on two recently published CRISPR-Cas9 knockout functional screens, we show here that the exit of the naïve state is impaired upon heme biosynthesis pathway blockade, linked in mESCs to the incapacity to activate MAPK- and TGFβ-dependent signaling pathways after succinate accumulation. In addition, heme synthesis inhibition promotes the acquisition of 2 cell-like cells in a heme-independent manner caused by a mitochondrial succinate accumulation and leakage out of the cell. We further demonstrate that extracellular succinate acts as a paracrine/autocrine signal, able to trigger the 2C-like reprogramming through the activation of its plasma membrane receptor, SUCNR1. Overall, this study unveils a new mechanism underlying the maintenance of pluripotency under the control of heme synthesis.

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