Transcriptome profiling of differentiating mESCs upon treatment with Crataegus extract WS®1442 and its subfraction MeOH eluate

In order to get mechanistic insights into the cardiomyogenic and differentiation-promoting activity of Crataegus spp. Extract WS®1442 and the identified bioactive subfractions (MeOH eluate), we have employed whole genome microarray expression profiling after 6 hours and 24 hours of treatment. We found that stress-associated genes are affected as well as specific signaling pathways such as TGFbeta, FGF, BDNF and retinoic acid. Cardiac differentiation assays in murine embryonic stem cells (mESCs, CGR8-Myh6-GFP) were performed on 384-well plates and cells treated on day 4 with vehicle control (DMSO, n = 2), WS®1442 (0.25 mg/mL, n = 3) or MeOH eluate (0.1 mg/mL, n = 3) for either 6 hours or 24 hours before cells were collected for RNA extraction (= total of 16 samples). RNA extraction and microarray analysis on ArrayXS Mouse chips was done by OakLabs (Hennigsdorf, Germany).