RNA-sequencing based transcriptome-wide expression profiling of Cynomolgus monkey and human IPSCs in vitro differentiated into endothelial cells

We report a macaque in vitro endothelial cell system using induced pluripotent stem cells (IPSCs) from Cynomolgus monkey (Macaca fascicularis). Based on a protocol adapted for human IPSCs we directly differentiated macaque IPSCs into endothelial cells under chemically defined conditions. The resulting endothelial cells can be enriched using magnetic cell sorting and display endothelial marker expression and function. RNA sequencing revealed that the differentiation process closely resembled vasculogenesis. Moreover, we show that endothelial cells derived from macaque and human IPSCs are highly similar regarding gene expression patterns and key endothelial functions such as inflammatory responses. These data demonstrate the power of IPSC differentiation technology to generate defined cell types such as endothelial cells as translational in vitro model to compare cell type specific responses across species. For more detail see also: Eva C Thoma, Tobias Heckel, David Keller, Nicolas Giroud, Brian Leonard, Klaus Christensen, Adrian Roth, Cristina Bertinetti-Lapatki, Martin Graf, Christoph Patsch. "Establishment of a translational endothelial cell model using directed differentiation of induced pluripotent stem cells from Cynomolgus monkey" (under submission) Overall design: mRNA expression profiles of Cynomolgus monkey and human IPSC and in vitro differentiated IPSC-derived endothelial cells measured by deep RNA-sequencing on an Illumina HiSeq2500 instrument