GATA2 knockout study to investigated the role of GATA2 in human hematopoiesis

We generated homozygous GATA2 knockout human embryonic stem cells (GATA2-/- hESCs) and analyzed their blood differentiation potential. Paritcularly at the hemogenic endothelium (HE) stage and hematopoietic progenitor cell (HPC) stage. Our result revealed that GATA2-/- hESCs displayed attenuated generation of CD34+CD43+ HPCs, due to the impairment of endothelial to hematopoietic transition (EHT). However, GATA2-/- hESCs retained the potential to generate erythroblasts, macrophages, but never granulocytes. Through RNA-Seq and further rescue experiment, we further identified that SPI1 was responsible for the defect of GATA2-/- hESCs in generation of CD34+CD43+ HPCs and granulocytes. Overall design: We compared the transcriptome of GATA2-/- hESCs, HE, HPC and their wildtype counterparts by RNA-Seq.