Glycolysis-mediated changes in acetyl-CoA and histone acetylation control the early differentiation of embryonic stem cells

We thank Prof. Nissim Benvenisty, Prof. Ruby Shalom-Feuerstein, Dr. Isabelle Petit, and Dr. Michael Shmoish for important discussions, as well as Eayar Leibovitch, SabinaTsytkin, and Chaya Rachel Calderon for technical support.International audienceLoss of pluripotency is a gradual event whose initiating factors are largely unknown. Here we report the earliest metabolic changes induced during the first hours of differentiation. High-resolution NMR identified 44 metabolites and a distinct metabolic transition occurring during early differentiation. Metabolic and transcriptional analyses showed that pluripotent cells produced acetyl-CoA through glycolysis and rapidly lost this function during differentiation. Importantly, modulation of glycolysis blocked histone deacetylation and differentiation in human and mouse embryonic stem cells. Acetate, a precursor of acetylCoA, delayed differentiation and blocked early histone deacetylation in a dose-dependent manner. Inhibitors upstream of acetyl-CoA caused differentiation of pluripotent cells, while those downstream delayed differentiation. Our results show a metabolic switch causing a loss of histone acetylation and pluripotent state during the first hours of differentiation. Our data highlight the important role metabolism plays in pluripotency and suggest that a glycolytic switch controlling histone acetylation can release stem cells from pluripotency