Ziwen Cai, Miaomiao Zhu, Li Xu, Yue Wang, Yin Xu, Wai Yen Yim, Hong Cao, Ruikang Guo, Xiang Qiu, Ximiao He, Jiawei Shi, Weihua Qiao, Nianguo Dong
BACKGROUND: A main obstacle in current valvular heart disease research is the lack of high-quality homogeneous functional heart valve cells. Human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs)-derived heart valve cells may help with this dilemma. However, there are no well-established protocols to induce hiPSCs to differentiate into functional heart valve cells, and the networks that mediate the differentiation have not been fully elucidated. METHODS: To generate heart valve cells from hiPSCs, we sequentially activated the Wnt, BMP4, VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor), and NFATc1 signaling pathways using CHIR-99021, BMP4, VEGF-165, and forskolin, respectively...
February 15, 2024: Circulation