RESEARCH ARTICLE
Constitutive Expression of GATA4 Dramatically Increases the Cardiogenic Potential of D3 Mouse Embryonic Stem Cells
Lillian L. Laemmle, Justus B. Cohen, Joseph C. Glorioso*
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2016Volume: 10
First Page: 248
Last Page: 257
Publisher ID: TOBIOTJ-10-248
DOI: 10.2174/1874070701610010248
Article History:
Received Date: 7/9/2015Revision Received Date: 17/12/2015
Acceptance Date: 31/5/2016
Electronic publication date: 30/06/2016
Collection year: 2016
open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 International Public License (CC BY-NC 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/legalcode), which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
The transcription factor GATA binding protein 4 (GATA4) is a vital regulator of cardiac programming that acts by inducing the expression of many different genes involved in cardiomyogenesis. Here we generated a D3 mouse embryonic stem cell line that constitutively expresses high levels of GATA4 and show that these cells have dramatically increased cardiogenic potential compared to an eGFP-expressing control cell line. Embryoid bodies (EB) derived from the D3-GATA4 line displayed increased levels of cardiac gene expression and showed more abundant cardiomyocyte differentiation than control eGFP EB. These cells and two additional lines expressing lower levels of GATA4 provide a platform to screen previously untested cardiac genes and gene combinations for their ability to further increase the efficiency of cardiomyocyte differentiation beyond that achieved by transgenic GATA4 alone. Non-integrative delivery of identified gene combinations will aid in the production of differentiated cells for the treatment of ischemic cardiomyopathy.