Efficient Generation of Cardiac Purkinje Cells from ESCs by Activating cAMP Signaling.

ABSTRACT: Dysfunction of the specialized cardiac conduction system (CCS) is associated with life-threatening arrhythmias. Strategies to derive CCS cells, including rare Purkinje cells (PCs), would facilitate models for mechanistic studies and drug discovery and also provide new cellular materials for regenerative therapies. A high-throughput chemical screen using CCS:lacz and Contactin2:egfp (Cntn2:egfp) reporter embryonic stem cell (ESC) lines was used to discover a small molecule, sodium nitroprusside (SN), that efficiently promotes the generation of cardiac cells that express gene profiles and generate action potentials of PC-like cells. Imaging and mechanistic studies suggest that SN promotes the generation of PCs from cardiac progenitors initially expressing cardiac myosin heavy chain and that

SUBMITTER: Tsai SY 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4471825 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature