Transcriptome Analysis of Oxytocin-Treated Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Epicardial Cells

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is one of the leading causes of mortality worldwide, and frequently leads to massive heart injury and the loss of billions of cardiac muscle cells and associated vasculature. Critical work in the last two decades demonstrated that these lost cells can be partially regenerated by the epicardium, the outermost mesothelial layer of the heart, in a process that highly recapitulates its role in heart development. Upon cardiac injury, mature epicardial cells activate and undergo an epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) to form epicardial-derived progenitor cells (EpiPCs), multipotent progenitors that can differentiate into several important cardiac lineages, including cardiomyocytes and vascular cells. In mammals, this process alone is insufficient for significant regeneration, but it may be possible to prime it by administering specific reprogramming factors, leading to enhanced EpiPC function. Here, we compared changes in gene expression induced by oxytocin in epicardial cells to determine potential pro-regenerative effects. Overall design: RNA sequencing of hiPSC-derived epicardial cells treated with and without oxytocin