RNA-Seq of FACS-sorted cardiomyocytes

The goal of this experiment was to evaluate the expression profile of cardiomyocytes freshly isolated from zebrafish embryos. Here we report mRNA abundance measurements for zebrafish cardiomyocytes at 20 hours post fertilization (hpf). We found that cardiomyocytes isolated from zebrafish embyros are enriched for orthologues of genes abundant in mammalian iPS-derived cardiomyocytes and other in vitro models of cardiomyocytes. It was also enriched with genes required for cardiac development in zebrafish and mammalian models. Using a rapid-throughput CRISPR-Cas9 based G0 screening pipeline, we tested 50 abundant transcription factors derived from this profile, rediscoved transcription factors known to be required for cardiac development, and found a novel role for zbtb16a in cardiac development. Overall design: Abundance measurements of cardiomyocytes purified from 20 hpf zebrafish embryos