Hic2 overexpression increase of cell reprogramming efficiency- a computational study

Abstract: Since stem cells have many applications in medicine and can be used for treating e.g. cancer and diabetes, finding efficient methods for producing them is a relevant area of research. Cell reprogramming is such a method and our collaborators recently showed that adding Hic2 to the existing protocols of methods increases the efficiency from 1% to 10%. In this thesis, I aim to investigate how an addition of Hic2 increases the efficiency. This is conducted by finding a gene regulatory network containing Hic2 and other core stem cell specific factors by optimizing corresponding dynamical system models to experimental data. Stochastic simulations and energy landscape methods reveal mechanisms for the experimentally observed increase in reprogramming efficiency.