Figure 1

Experimental design. (A) Biosynthetic pathway of GPI-anchored proteins. GPI-anchor precursors are synthesized and attached to proteins in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). The resulting GPI-anchored proteins are expressed at the cell surface. Out of 26 genes involved in this pathway, four (shown in red) were excluded from our screening (see text). Dol-P-Man, dolichol-phosphate-mannose. (B) Schematic screening procedure. (C) Functional complementation assay. Upper, principle of the assay. Lower, representative culture fields of Pigl^m mutant ESCs unrestored (left) and restored (right) by plasmid transfection (scale bars, 50 μm). For clarity, original images shown in Additional file 1: Figure S1C were trimmed.