{"doi":"10.3410/f.739482240.793585490","title":"Faculty Opinions recommendation of Reactivation of the pluripotency program precedes formation of the cranial neural crest.","abstract":"During development, cells progress from pluripotency to more restricted cell fates of a particular germ layer. However, cranial neural crest cells (CNCC), a transient cell population that begets most of the craniofacial skeleton, have much broader differentiation potential than their ectodermal lineage of origin. Here we identify a neuroepithelial precursor population characterized by expression of canonical pluripotency transcription factors, which gives rise to CNCC and is essential for craniofacial development. Pluripotency factor Oct4 is transiently reactivated in CNCC and is required for subsequent formation of ectomesenchyme. Furthermore, open chromatin landscapes of Oct4 + CNCC precursors resemble those of epiblast stem cells, with additional features suggestive of priming for mesenchymal programs. We propose that CNCC expand their developmental potential via a transient re-acquisition of molecular signatures of pluripotency.","journal":"Faculty Opinions – Post-Publication Peer Review of the Biomedical Literature","year":2021,"id":228680,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9536,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":44639,"name":"Patrick P. L. Tam","orcid":"0000-0001-6950-8388","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":54,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:54:54.016932Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}