Human pluripotent stem cells (hPSC), including embryonic stem cells
(ESC) and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC), possess the capability
of differentiating into all derivatives of the three germ layers. Given
that ***** cardiomyocytes do not typically proliferate, hPSC can
potentially provide an unlimited supply of cardiomyocytes. The
cardiomyocyte derived from hPSC can be used for drug screening, toxicity
testing, and developmental studies.
The spontaneous cardiac differentiation of hPSC is inefficient, with
less than 1% of cardiomyocytes present in the culture. The
differentiation process can be significantly enhanced by adding growth
factors (BMP4, activin A, and FGF2 etc.), and small molecules, or using
mouse END-2 cell-conditioned medium. The appropriate temporal addition
of growth factors is also critic for cardiac differentiation. The Wnt
signaling pathway is one of the key regulators in cardiac
differentiation of hPSC. Modulating the Wnt signaling activity at
different stages of differentiation is sufficient to drive hPSC to
differentiate into cardiomyocytes.
ScienCell’s Human Pluripotent Stem Cell Cardiomyocyte Differentiation
Kit (PSCCDK) is specially designed to differentiate hPSC to
cardiomyocytes at a high efficiency, combining growth factor induction
with the temporal modulation of canonical Wnt signaling by small
molecules. The kit efficiently converts monolayer-cultured pluripotent
stem cells to contracting cardiomyocytes within 15 days under serum-free
and feeder-free conditions. With the PSCCDK there is no need for the
intermediate embryoid body formation. The kit contains 3 differentiation
media, 1 basal medium, and 1 growth supplement. One kit is enough to
differentiate 2 12-well plates of cells.
The PSCCDK kit is developed using hESC WA09 (H9) cultured in STEMium®
medium (Cat. #5801). We consistently get a sheet of cardiomyocytes from
H9 cells. Using the kit, we are also able to derive contracting
clusters from a hiPSC line which is generated from human dermal
fibroblasts using mRNA reprogramming technology. The hPSC-derived
cardiomyocyte cells can be passaged and further enriched using our
Cardiomyocyte Selective Medium (Cat. #5911).
