Media for culturing naive human pluripotent stem cells

A cell culture comprising human or rhesus monkey naive pluripotent stem cell (PSC) and a culture medium comprising a STAT3 activator at a concentration of 1-300 ng/ml, an ERK1/2 inhibitor at a concentration of 0.1-50 μM, a Tankyrase inhibitor at a concentration of 0.5-10 μM and at least one agent selected from the group consisting of a p38 inhibitor at a concentration of about 0.05-5 μM, an SRC inhibitor at a concentration of 0.2-10 μM, Activin A at a concentration of 1-40 ng/ml and a NOTCH inhibitor at a concentration of 0.05-50 μM,

• wherein the culture is capable of maintaining the human or rhesus monkey naive PSC in a naïve state for at least 5 passages, and wherein
• (i) when said naive PSC is a female PSC, then said naive female PSC has two unmethylated alleles of the promoter of the X-inactive specific transcript (XIST) gene;
• and
• (ii) when said naive PSC is a male PSC, then said naive male PSC has an unmethylated allele of said promoter of said XIST gene,
• and said naïve state is characterized by:
• ability to maintain pluripotency the absence of DNA methyltransferase 1 (DNMT1) expression as determined by OCT4 expression in an immunostaining assay;
• and
• an expression level of transcription factor E3 (TFE3) in said naive PSC is characterized by a nucleus to cytoplasm expression ratio which is equal to or higher than 1 as determined by an immunostaining assay.