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Method Article
* These authors contributed equally
Here, we present a robust, fast and scalable cardiomyocyte differentiation protocol for human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs). Cardiomyocytes derived using this large-scale method can provide sufficient cell numbers for their effective use in human cardiovascular disease modeling, high-throughput drug screening, and potentially clinical applications.
Maximizing the benefit of human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) for research, disease modeling, pharmaceutical and clinical applications requires robust methods for the large-scale production of functional cell types, including cardiomyocytes. Here we demonstrate that the temporal manipulation of WNT, TGF-β, and SHH signaling pathways leads to highly efficient cardiomyocyte differentiation of single-cell passaged hPSC lines in both static suspension and stirred suspension bioreactor systems. Employing this strategy resulted in ~ 100% beating spheroids, consistently containing > 80% cardiac troponin T-positive cells after 15 days of culture, validated in multiple hPSC lines. We also report on a variation of this protocol for use with cell lines not currently adapted to single-cell passaging, the success of which has been verified in 42 hPSC lines. Cardiomyocytes generated using these protocols express lineage-specific markers and show expected electrophysiological functionalities. Our protocol presents a simple, efficient and robust platform for the large-scale production of human cardiomyocytes.
Human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs), including human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) and induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs), have the ability of self-renewal and the capacity to differentiate into cells of the three embryonic germ layers 1,2. Due to these characteristics, hPSCs provide a valuable and unlimited source for the generation and scalable production of disease-relevant cell types for modeling human disease 3-5, for high-throughput drug screening and toxicity assays 6,7 and potentially for clinical applications 8. Generation of cardiomyocytes from hPSCs provides the opportunity to specifically investigate the mechanisms of complex human cardiovascular diseases and their possible treatments, previously beyond the scope of our capabilities due to the lack of relevant animal models and/or the availability of affected primary tissues.
All of the aforementioned applications of hPSCs necessitate the production of massive numbers of highly enriched and functional cardiomyocytes. Thus, the availability of an efficient, reproducible and scalable in vitro cardiac differentiation protocol suitable for multiple hPSC lines is crucial. Conventional cardiomyocyte differentiation protocols have employed different strategies such as embryoid body formation 9, co-culture techniques 10, induction with cocktails of cytokines 11 and protein transduction methods 12. In spite of advances in these techniques, most still suffer from poor efficiency, require expensive growth factors, or offer limited universality when attempting to use multiple hPSC lines. To date, these challenges have set limits to the production of hPSC-derived cardiomyocytes for cell therapy studies in animal models, as well as in the pharmaceutical industry for drug discovery 13. Therefore, the development of robust and affordable techniques for large-scale production of functional hPSC-derived cardiomyocytes in scalable culture systems would largely facilitate their commercial and clinical applications.
In this manuscript, we report the development of a cost-effective and integrated cardiac differentiation system with high efficacy, reproducibility and applicability to hESCs and hiPSCs generated from a variety of sources and culture methods, including a method for the large-scale production of highly enriched populations of hPSC-derived cardiomyocytes using a bioreactor. Additionally, we have optimized this protocol for hPSC lines not adapted to feeder free and/or single cell culture, such as newly established hiPSCs or large cohorts of hPSC lines relevant to analysis of disease mechanism.
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1. Preparation of Culture Media, Coating of Cell Culture Plates and Maintenance of Undifferentiated hPSCs
2. Differentiation of hPSCs as Spheroids in a Static Suspension System
3. Differentiation of hPSCs as Spheroids in a Stirred Suspension Bioreactor
4. Differentiation of hPSCs Using Cultures not Adapted to Single Cell Passaging
Note: This approach is specifically useful for the fast differentiation of a high number of hPSC lines without having to adapt to single-cell culturing techniques, an enormously labor-intensive and time consuming process. This technique is applicable to cell lines which are highly sensitive to enzymatic cell dissociation, such as newly established hPSC lines.
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In order to establish a simple method for the large-scale differentiation of cardiomyocytes from hPSCs, we created a protocol in which cells were treated initially with a WNT/β-catenin activator (CHIR99021)16 and subsequently with inhibitors of the WNT/β-catenin and transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) pathways (IWP216 and SB43154217, respectively) and finally an activator of the sonic hedgehog (SHH) pathway (purmorphamine)17
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Cardiomyocytes derived from hPSCs are an extremely attractive source for use in human disease modeling, drug screening/toxicity testing and, perhaps in the future, regenerative therapies. One of the major hurdles to using these cells however, is the ability to provide enough high quality material for their effective use. Using our described protocol, we offer a method that overcomes this limitation.
Recently, synthetic small molecules targeting specific signaling pathways involved in cardiogen...
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The Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute does not engage in, nor does it condone, the destruction of human embryos for research. Its contribution to this study was limited to work on human induced pluripotent stem cells.
The authors declare they have no competing financial interests.
This study was funded by grants provided from Royan Institute, Iranian Council of Stem Cell Research and Technology, the Iran National Science Foundation (INSF), the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (NHMRC; 354400), the National Heart Foundation of Australia/Heart Kids Australia (G11S5629), and the New South Wales Cardiovascular Research Network. HF was supported by a University International Postgraduate Scholarship from the University of New South Wales, Australia. RPH was supported by a NHMRC Australia Fellowship. The authors express their gratitude to the human subjects who participated in this research.
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Name | Company | Catalog Number | Comments |
Knockout DMEM | Life Technologies | 10829018 | |
Knockout Serum Replacement (KO-SR) | Life Technologies | 10828028 | |
Glutamax | Life Technologies | 35050061 | |
MEM Non-essential Amino Acids | Life Technologies | 11140-050 | |
β-Mercaptoethanol | Life Technologies | 21985-023 | |
Basic Fibroblast Growth Factor (bFGF) | Miltenyi Biotec | 130-093-843 | |
RPMI1640 | Life Technologies | 11875093 | |
DPBS, no calcium, no magnesium | Life Technologies | 14190144 | |
DPBS | Life Technologies | 14287072 | |
Attachment Factor (AF) | Life Technologies | S006100 | |
ECM Gel | Sigma-Aldrich | E1270 | |
Laminin | Invitrogen | 23017-015 | |
DMEM | Life Technologies | 11965-092 | |
Fatal Bovine Serum (FBS) | Life Technologies | 16140-071 | |
B27 minus insulin | Gibco | A18956-01 | |
Penicillin/Streptomycin | Life Technologies | 15070063 | |
0.05% Trypsin/EDTA | Life Technologies | 25300-054 | |
Collagenase Type IV | Life Technologies | 17140-019 | |
Calcium Chloride (CaCl2) | Sigma-Aldrich | C7902 | |
Mitomycin C | Bioaustralis | BIA-M1183 | |
CHIR99021 | Miltenyi Biotec | 130-104-172 | |
IWP2 | Miltenyi Biotec | 130-105-335 | |
SB431542 | Miltenyi Biotec | 130-095-561 | |
Purmorphamine | Miltenyi Biotec | 130-104-465 | |
ROCK inhibitor Y-27632 | Miltenyi Biotec | 130-104-169 | |
Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) | Sigma-Aldrich | E6758 | |
Poly Vinyl Alcohol (PVA) | Sigma-Aldrich | 363073 | |
Gelatin | Sigma-Aldrich | G1890 | |
Trypan Blue | Bio-Rad | 145-0013 | |
Accumax | Innovative Cell Technologies Inc. | AM105 | |
Sigmacote | Sigma-Aldrich | SL2 | |
CELLSPIN | Integra Biosciences | 183 001 | |
Spinner flask with 1 pendulum, 100 ml | Integra Biosciences | 182 023 | |
Mouse Embryonic Fibroblasts (MEF) | Prepared in-house (or commercially available) | ||
Human pluripotent stem cell (hPSC) lines | Prepared in-house (or commercially available) |
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