Description
Hematopoietic progenitor cells were isolated from 13.5 day mouse fetal livers by lineage depletion and expanded for three days. Fetal livers were isolated from both wild type and Gata-1 knock embryos. Gata-1 knock embryos contain a deletion of the Gata-1 promoter sequence that results in undetectable levels of Gata-1 protein specifically in the megakaryocyte lineage. Following progenitor outgrowth megakaryocytes were enriched in a differentiation media for three days and isolated on a discontinuous BSA gradient. The resulting megakaryocytes were >90% pure as determined by acetylcholinesterase staining. These cells were lysed in Trizol and the resulting RNA was used for hybridization.