Differentiation of Murine Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells into Cardiomyocytes,
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- Category: Vol. 85, March 2017
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Differentiation of Murine Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells into Cardiomyocytes, MARIANNE E. YASSA, IMAN A. MANSOUR, NADIA I. SEWELAM and TAGHRID GAAFAR
Abstract
Background: The recent breakthrough in the generation of induced Pluripotent Stem (iPS) cells, which are almost indistinguishable from Embryonic Stem (ES) cells, facilitates the generation of human patient-specific disease-specific stem cell lines. The ability to generate a reproducible murine iPS-cardiomyocyte differentiation system may bring unique value to the emerging field of personalized medicine: For the establishment of patient-and disease-specific disease models, for drug screening and for the establishment of future autol-ogous myocardial cell-replacement therapies.
Aim of Work: The aim of this study was to characterize the cardiomyocyte differentiation potential of murine iPS cells.
Methods and Results: With the use of a standard Embryoid Body (EB)-based differentiation protocol for ES cells, murine iPS cells were differentiated into cardiomyocytes. The differ-entiation resulted in an average of 80% of spontaneously contracting EBs at day 13 of differentiation. Analysis on structural level demonstrated that iPS cell-derived cardiomy-ocytes show typical features of ES cell-derived cardiomyocytes. Immunofluorescent staining confirmed expression of cardio-myocyte-typical protein; sarcomeric a-actinin.
Conclusions: iPS cells differentiate into functional cardi-omyocytes. In contrast to ES cells, iPS cells allow derivation of autologous functional cardiomyocytes. These results hold great promise for the development of in vitro models of cardiac genetic disorders, for drug discovery and testing, and for the emerging field of cardiovascular regenerative medicine.