The Cell-Cycle State of Stem Cells Determines Cell Fate Propensity

(Cell 155, 135–147; September 26, 2013)

Our paper demonstrated that the cell-cycle phase of pluripotent cells influences their propensity to differentiate to distinct fates. We compared human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) stably overexpressing cyclin D1 to a control hESC overexpressing GFP and compared hESCs exposed to a CDK inhibitor to hESCs. We show that cyclin D1 overexpression and CDK treatment induced differentiation. Although these experiments were done at the same time, we displayed the results of the cyclin-D1-overexpressing experiments in Figure 4 and the results of the CDK inhibition experiments in Figure 7. It has come to our attention that we mistakenly selected the same image of control cells for both Figures 4A and Figure 7A even though in one case (Figure 4A) they are labeled as GFP-overexpressing cells (GFP OE) and in the other (Figure 7A) as undifferentiated cells (UD), described in the text as baseline untreated hESCs. In fact, both panels show the GFP-overexpressing hESCs. Given the virtually indistinguishable behavior and appearance of the two control cell populations, this error does not alter any conclusions or interpretation in the manuscript.