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Gene and MicroRNA Profiling of Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Endothelial Cells

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Abstract

Introduction

The differentiated cell lineages from human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) and human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) have shown their potential in regenerative medicine. However, the functional and transcriptional microRNA (miRNA) expression pattern during endothelial differentiation has yet to be characterized.

Methods

In this study, hESCs and hiPSCs were differentiated into endothelial cells (ECs). Then the endothelial-related gene profiling and miRNA profiling of hiPSCs, hESCs, hiPSCs derived endothelial cells (hiPSC-ECs), hESC derived endothelial cells (hESC-ECs) and human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) were compared using RT-PCR Array. The data was analyzed using the data analysis system on QIAGEN’s website.

Results

Our analysis demonstrated that the endothelial differentiation was triggered after EB formation and the EC-associated genes were up-regulated swiftly in both hESC-EBs and hiPSC-EBs; hiPSC-ECs and hESC-ECs had the similar EC-associated gene expression patterns. Moreover, we report here the first miRNA profiling study of hiPSC-ECs. Analyzing 376 unique miRNAs, we have identified several interesting miRNAs, including miR-20a, miR-20b, miR-222, miR-210, which have been previously reported to be involved in endothelial differentiation and show surprising expression patterns across our samples. We also identified novel miRNAs, such as miR-125a-5p, miR-149, miR-296-5p, miR-100, miR-27b, miR-181a and miR-137, which were up-regulated in both hiPSC-ECs and hESC-ECs during endothelial differentiation.

Conclusion

hiPSC-ECs and hESC-ECs exhibited a high degree of similarity with HUVECs in EC-associated genes expression. And the miRNA profiling analysis revealed significant differences between hiPSCs and hESCs, but a high degree of similarity between hiPSC-ECs and hESC-ECs.

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Acknowledgments

This work was partially supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81320108014, 81371620, 81300376), National Basic Research Program of China (2011CB964903), PUMC Youth Fund and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (33320140141), Tianjin Natural Science Foundation (12JCZDJC24900, 14JCQNJC10600) and Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University (IRT13023).

Competing Interests

None

Contribution

ZL was the principal investigator and took primary responsibility for the paper. ZL, DK, GZ and ZH conceived and designed the experiments. LinaW, WS, WD, YX and LijunW performed the experiments. LinaW, WS and ZL analyzed the data. ZL and LinaW wrote the paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Lab of Experimental Hematology, Institute of Hematology and Blood Diseases Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Tianjin, China

    Lina Wang, Zhongchao Han & Guoguang Zheng

  2. Collaborative Innovation Center for Biotherapy, Nankai University School of Medicine, 94 Weijin Road, Tianjin, China, 300071

    Weijun Su, Wei Du, Yang Xu & Zongjin Li

  3. Department of Traumatology, Beijing Water Resources Hospital, Beijing, China

    Lijun Wang

  4. The Key Laboratory of Bioactive Materials, Ministry of Education, Nankai University, the College of Life Science, Tianjin, China

    Deling Kong & Zongjin Li

Authors
  1. Lina Wang
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  2. Weijun Su
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  3. Wei Du
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  4. Yang Xu
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  5. Lijun Wang
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  6. Deling Kong
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  7. Zhongchao Han
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  8. Guoguang Zheng
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  9. Zongjin Li
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Zongjin Li.

Additional information

Lina Wang and Weijun Su contributed equally to this work.

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Wang, L., Su, W., Du, W. et al. Gene and MicroRNA Profiling of Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Endothelial Cells. Stem Cell Rev and Rep 11, 219–227 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12015-014-9582-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12015-014-9582-4

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