Cell cycle-driven transcriptome maturation confers multilineage competence to cardiopharyngeal progenitors.

During development, stem and progenitor cells divide and transition through germ layer- and lineage-specific multipotent states to generate the diverse cell types that compose an animal. Defined changes in biomolecular composition underlie the progressive loss of potency and acquisition of lineage-specific characteristics. For example, multipotent cardiopharyngeal progenitors display multilineage transcriptional priming, whereby both the cardiac and pharyngeal muscle programs are partially active and coexist in the same progenitor cells, while their daughter cells engage in a cardiac or pharyngeal muscle differentiation path only after cell division.