RNA-seq of hESC-derived cardiac cells (H9 cell line) on day 8, comparing control vs PD0325901.

FGF-MEK-ERK pathway has been implicated in diverse contexts in development. The pathway involves many autoinhibitory loops, resulting in pulse-like activity patterns. Here, we modulated the ERK activity during cardiac differentiation at the lateral plate mesoderm stage by PD0325901, a potent inhibitor of MEK, which is an upstream effector of ERK. We collected the resulting cell population, both in 2D and 3D, after cardiac specification to analyse how the ERK inhibition during induction affects the cell fate choice.