Background: Mammalian germ cell genome undergoes a massive epigenetic modification during fetal development and spatio-temporal regulated gene expression plays a critical role in primordial germ cell (PGC) destiny. Method: We designed a polycistronic lentiviral vector for simultaneous overexpression of Stella, Oct4 and Nanos2 in MEFs. Three weeks following transduction, whole transcriptome analysis was performed by RNA-Seq (Illumina) and the differentially expressed genes of RNA-Seq were validated by quantitative Real-Time PCR. Results: Here we identified overexpression of specific germ cell factors, and moreover, among the 501 upregulated genes (fold change > 2) many were involved in neurogenesis, proliferation, blood vessel development and BMP signaling. Conclusion: These results open up the possibility of differentiating induced MEFs to PGC-like cells and also neural like cells with specific germ cell factors.

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