Hematopoietic differentiation of human embryonic stem cells - timecourse and d7 CD34 and CD41 fractions

This study aimed to examine gene expression in human ES cells (the RUNX1C GFP reporter line) differentiated towrads hameatopoietic mesoderm in a defined serum free medium. At day 7 of differentiation, the cells were sorted into fractions based on CD34 and CD41 expression and the four fractions analysed by microarray. The total number of samples analysed was 13. Undifferentiated hESC (RUNX1C GFP/w, based on the HES3 cell line) plus samples from d1 to d8 of differentiation comprised one experiment (9 samples) and four flow sorted fractions from d7 differentiated cells (CD34-CD41-, CD34lo CD41-, CD34hi CD41- and CD34lo CD41lo) comprised the second experiment. The parent cell line was maintained on mouse feeder cells in KOSR containing medium supplemented with 10 ng/ml FGF2. Differentiation was performed as spin EBs in APEL medium (Ng et al Nature Protocols 2008). For the first 4 days, medium was supplemented with BMP4, VEGF, SCF and Activin. Medium was changed at d4 to fresh APEL medium supplemented with BMP4, VEGF, SCF, FGF2 and IGF2.