Automated High Frequency Sampling of Stem Cell Differentiation Reveals Early Stage Divergence of Human and Mouse Gene Expression Kinetics

We performed whole transcriptome RNA sequencing experiments of neural differentiation time courses starting from human ES cells (EGFP-H1) and mouse EGFP-EpiS cells. Cells were sampled at high temporal frequency using an automated Tecan Tissue Culture robotics system to sample mouse cells every 4 mins and human cells every 10 mins for the first 10 hours of neural differentiation. Overall design: Cells were sampled at high temporal frequency using an automated Tecan Tissue Culture robotics system to sample mouse cells every 4 mins and human cells every 10 mins for the first 10 hours of neural differentiation. Cells were pre-seeded in pluripotent conditions (E8 on matrigel for H1 cells and TSS on matrigel for mEpiS cells), then were switched to neural differentiation media and immediately sampled every 4 or 10 mins for mouse and human cells, respectively, for 10 hours.