Esrrb guides naive pluripotent cells through the formative transcriptional programme.

During embryonic development, naive pluripotent epiblast cells transit to a formative state. The formative epiblast cells form a polarized epithelium, exhibit distinct transcriptional and epigenetic profiles and acquire competence to differentiate into all somatic and germline lineages. However, we have limited understanding of how the transition to a formative state is molecularly controlled.