Dimitris Thanos, Marios Agelopoulos and colleagues recently published a study in the EMBO Journal

Investigation of the early transcriptional events of cellular reprogramming triggered by the co‐expression of Oct4, Sox2, Klf4 and c‐Myc identifies transcriptional regulators that are stochastically activated during cellular reprogramming, and which constitute a gene regulatory network required for acquisition of ground state pluripotency.

• Nine transcriptional regulators (Cbfa2t3, Gli2, Irf6, Nanog, Ovol1, Rcan1, Taf1c, Tead4 and Tfap4) are required for cellular reprogramming and establishment of pluripotency.
• Stochastic co‐expression of the nine network components occurs in a remarkably small number of cells.
• The nine regulators constitute a gene regulatory network required for acquisition of ground state pluripotency.

Identification of a dynamic gene regulatory network required for pluripotency factor-induced reprogramming of mouse fibroblasts and hepatocytes.
Papathanasiou M, Tsiftsoglou SA, Polyzos AP, Papadopoulou D, Valakos D, Klagkou E, Karagianni P, Pliatska M, Talianidis I, Agelopoulos M, Thanos D.
EMBO J. 2020 Oct 9:e102236. doi: 10.15252/embj.2019102236