Improved Atrial Differentiation of Human Pluripotent Stem Cells by Activation of Retinoic Acid Receptor Alpha (RARα)

Induction of the specific retinoic acid receptor alpha (RARα) increased the efficiency of atrial differentiation to 72% compared with 45% after odulating the retinoic acid (RA) pathway with all-trans RA (atRA). For further purification of the AMs, we describe a metabolic selection procedure that enhanced the AM percentage to more than 90% without compromising the AM yield (15,542 per EB, equal to 3.11 per hPSC) or functionality of the AMs as evaluated by RNAseq, immunostaining, and optical action potential measurement. At day 28 of spin-EB RARa-induced atrial differentiation, total RNA of three hESC-derived AM replicates was sequenced.