Figure 1.

Human UhiPS cells differentiated into functional cardiomyocytes. A, Transcriptional profile of control hiPS cells derived from skin fibroblasts (control FhiPS-CMs) and from urine cells (control UhiPS-CMs and A561P-UhiPS CMs) at days 5, 18, and 28 of cardiac differentiation. Quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction analysis was performed on pluripotent stem cell markers (OCT3/4,NANOG,SOX2), on cardiomyocyte markers (NKX2-5,GJA1,GJA5,RYR2), and on key genes encoding cardiac ion channels (SCN5A,CACNA1C,CACNA1G,KCND3,KCNQ1,KCNH2 and KCNJ2) to show enrichment for the cardiomyocyte population. The expression for each gene and sample (n=5 per condition) was normalized to the ß-actin gene ACTB and was calculated relative to the median expression level. Raw minimum and maximum values were taken as a reference for heat map representation. B, (top) In control UhiPS-CMs, representative immunofluorescence images of the cardiac sarcomeric protein α-actinin (green, left) and costaining of myosin light chain 2a (MLC2a; green, middle) and myosin light chain 2v (MLC2v; red, middle) and troponin I and connexin 43 (green and red, respectively, right); (bottom) in A561P-UhiPS CMs, representative immunofluorescence images of α-actinin (red, left), costaining of MLC2a (red; middle) and MLC2v (green, middle) and troponin I and connexin 43 (green and red, respectively, right). Scale=5 μm. CM indicates cardiomyocytes; FhiPS, foreskin fibroblast–derived human induced pluripotent stem cells; max, maximum; min, minimum; UhiPS, urine-derived human induced pluripotent stem cells.