Figure 1.

Temporal expression of markers of germ cell in EBs in the presence and absence of RA.

In the process of differentiation, we found that there was a sharp increase in expression of the later germ cell lineage markers including VASA, SCP3, GDF9 and TEKT1 as EB differentiation progressed. In addition, the expression of these markers increased an average of 9.3 (VASA), 6.9 (SCP3), 7.2 (GDF9) and 11.8 (TEKT1) fold respectively in the presence of RA, compared with the absence of RA, over 5 days differentiation.

d0: undifferentiated hESCs; d1: differentiated hESCs for 1 day; d3: differentiated hESCs for 3 days; d5: differentiated hESCs for 5 days; d7: differentiated hESCs for 7 days; RA(+): the presence of 10 μM; RA(-): the absence of RA.

Statistically significant differences (p<0.05) are indicated by different letters (A, a, Aa, B, b, Bb, C, c, Cc, D, d, Dd).

A, B, C, D: the group RA (+) compared to d0;

a, b, c, d: the group RA(-) compared to d0;

Aa, Bb, Cc, Dd: the group RA(+) compared to RA(-).