We therefore sought to undertake systematic loss-of-function experiments on all lincRNAs known to be expressed in mouse embryonic stem cells (ESCs)2,3. ESCs are pluripotent cells that can self-renew in culture and can give rise to cells of any of the three primary germ layers including the germline14. The signalling14, transcriptional15–17, and chromatin15,18–21 regulatory networks controlling pluripotency have been well characterized providing an ideal system to determine how lincRNAs may integrate into these processes.
