Abstract
Of the thousands of long noncoding RNAs expressed in embryonic stem cells (ESCs), few have known roles and fewer have been functionally implicated in the regulation of self-renewal and pluripotency, or the reprogramming of somatic cells to the pluripotent state. In ESCs, Cyrano is a stably expressed long intergenic noncoding RNA with no previously assigned role. We demonstrate that Cyrano contributes to ESC maintenance, as its depletion results in the loss of hallmarks of self-renewal. Delineation of Cyrano's network through transcriptomics revealed widespread effects on signaling pathways and gene expression networks that contribute to ESC maintenance. Cyrano shares unique sequence complementarity with the differentiation-associated microRNA, mir-7, and mir-7 overexpression reduces expression of a key self-renewal factor to a similar extent as Cyrano knockdown. This suggests that Cyrano functions to restrain the action of mir-7. Altogether, we provide a view into the multifaceted function of Cyrano in ESC maintenance.