Nanog is a member of the homeobox family of DNA binding transcription factors and has been shown to maintain embryonic stem (ES) cell self-renewal independently of leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF)/Stat3. Nanog mRNA is present in pluripotent mouse and human cell lines, and absent from differentiated cells. Functionally, Nanog works together with other key pluripotent factors (Oct4, Sox2, and Lin28) to reprogram human fibroblasts and generate induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. These key factors form a regulatory network to support or limit each other's expression level, which maintains the properties of ES cells.
