Dissection of human embryonic stem cells-derived endoderm progenitors by differential cell capture on antibody arrays

Heterogeneity, shortage of material, and lack of progenitor-specific cell surface markers are major obstacles to elucidating the mechanisms underlying developmental processes. Here we report a proteomic platform that alleviates these difficulties and demonstrate its effectiveness in fractionating heterogeneous cultures of early endoderm derived from human embryonic stem cells. The approach, designated cell-capture antibody array, is based on highly parallel, comparative screening of live cell populations using hundreds of antibodies directed against cell-surface antigens. The results demonstrate the potential of the cell-capture antibody array as a powerful tool for detailed dissection of heterogeneous cellular systems. Genome-wide comparion of mRNA profile in hES-derived CD61+ cells versus CXCR4+ and CXCR4+/CD61- cells using Affymetrix arrays.