The abundance of factors associated with pluripotency (NANOG and OCT-3/4) and undifferentiated state (AP-2gamma) may explain the remarkable pluripotency of germ cell neoplasms, which are capable of differentiating to various somatic tissue components of teratomas.
Identification of NANOG as a molecular marker of undifferentiated germ cell tumors provides a novel tool for identifying and classifying tumors of germ cell origin.