Transient stabilization of human cardiovascular progenitor cells from human pluripotent stem cells in vitro reflects stage-specific heart development in vivo.

Aims: Understanding the molecular identity of human pluripotent stem cell (hPSC)-derived cardiac progenitors and mechanisms controlling their proliferation and differentiation is valuable for developmental biology and regenerative medicine.

Methods And Results: Here, we show that chemical modulation of histone acetyl transferases (by IQ-1) and WNT (by CHIR99021) synergistically enables the transient and reversible block of directed cardiac differentiation progression on hPSCs. The resulting stabilized cardiovascular progenitors (SCPs) are characterized by ISL1pos/KI-67pos/NKX2-5neg expression.