Direct reprogramming of mouse fibroblasts into cardiomyocytes with chemical cocktails

The direct conversion, or trans-differentiation, of non-cardiac cells into cardiomyocytes by forced expression of transcription factors and microRNAs provide promising ways of cardiac regeneration. However, genetic manipulations are still not desirable in real clinical applications. we report the generation of automatically beating cardiomyocyte-like cells from mouse fibroblasts with only chemical cocktails. These chemical-induced cardiomyocyte-like cells (CiCMs) express cardiomyocyte-specific markers, exhibit sarcomeric organization, and possess typical cardiac calcium flux and electrophysiological features. Microarray-bassed gene expression patterns of Mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs), CiCMs, and cardiomyocytes(CMs) indicated a clear transition from dividing MEFs to differentiated cardiomyocyte-like state in CiCM samples.

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Fu Y, Huang C, Xu X, Gu H, Ye Y, Jiang C, Qiu Z, Xie X