title: Functional high-resolution time-course expression analysis of human embryonic stem cells undergoing cardiac induction.
abstract: Cardiac induction of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) is a process bearing increasing medical relevance, yet it is poorly understood from a developmental biology perspective. Anticipated technological progress in deriving stably expandable cardiac precursor cells or in advancing cardiac subtype specification protocols will likely require deeper insights into this fascinating system. Recent improvements in controlling hESC differentiation now enable a near-homogeneous induction of the cardiac lineage. This is based on an optimized initial stimulation of mesoderm-inducing signaling pathways such as Activin and/or FGF, BMP, and WNT, followed by WNT inhibition as a secondary requirement. Here, we describe a comprehensive data set based on varying hESC differentiation conditions in a systematic manner and recording high-resolution differentiation time-courses analyzed by genome-wide expression profiling (GEO accession number GSE67154). As a baseline, hESCs were differentiated into cardiomyocytes under optimal conditions. Moreover, in additional time-series, individual signaling factors were withdrawn from the initial stimulation cocktail to reveal their specific roles via comparison to the standard condition. Hence, this data set presents a rich resource for hypothesis generation in studying human cardiac induction, as we reveal numbers of known as well as uncharacterized genes prominently marking distinct intermediate stages in the process. These data will also be useful for identifying putative cardiac master regulators in the human system as well as for characterizing expandable cardiac stem cells.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Genetics of Heart Diseases (IfGH), Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, University Hospital Münster, Münster, Germany.
authors.forename: Ilaria
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Piccini
authors.affiliation: Group of Computational Biology and Systems Biomedicine, Biodonostia Health Research Institute, 20014 San Sebastián, Spain; IKERBASQUE, Basque Foundation for Science, 48009 Bilbao, Spain.
authors.forename: Marcos
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Araúzo-Bravo
authors.affiliation: Institute of Genetics of Heart Diseases (IfGH), Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, University Hospital Münster, Münster, Germany.
authors.forename: Guiscard
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Seebohm
authors.affiliation: Human Stem Cell Pluripotency Laboratory, Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine, Münster, Germany; Chemical Genomics Centre of the Max Planck Society, Dortmund, Germany.
authors.forename: Boris
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Greber