Single cell expression profiles of the earliest cardiac precursor cells

The character of the earliest cardiac precursor cells remains largely unknown. To elucidate this further, we constructed single cell cDNAs from the mouse embryonic cardiac precurcsor cells of the early allantoic bud stage and the early headfold stage, and subjected them to deep sequencing. Overall design: The most anterior part of the embryos where cardiac precursor cells exist was digested by trypsin to separate into single cells. After a cell was transferred into a reaction tube, single cell cDNAs were constructed as PCR amplicons. cDNAs of cardiac precursor cells were identified by PCR of marker genes.