Fig. 2.

Kinetics of transcripts associated with early endothelial induction and pluripotency of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs). a Schematic representation of differentiation of H1-hESCs towards endothelial progenitors by sequential treatment with CHIR99021 (+GSKi) and basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) for 24 hours each followed by exposure to bone morphogenetic protein 4 (BMP4) and/or vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). b Kinetics of expression of VEGFR2, CD34 and CD31 upon induction with BMP4 (Gi.F.B), VEGF (Gi.F.V) and BMP4 + VEGF (Gi.F.BV) over a differentiation period of 5 days. c Time course expression kinetics of pluripotency genes (OCT4, SOX2, NANOG) over 5 days of differentiation among the three differentiation conditions. For gene expression plots in (b) expression levels were normalized to corresponding β-ACTIN values and are shown relative to undifferentiated hESCs, while for those in (c) the expression levels were log-normalized to reveal the amount of downregulation in relation to undifferentiated hESCs. Error bars show standard deviations; n ≥ 3. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, versus Gi.F.B