Distinct HAND2/HAND2-AS1 Expression Levels May Fine-Tune Mesenchymal and Epithelial Cell Plasticity of Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells.

We previously developed several successful decellularization strategies that yielded porcine cardiac extracellular matrices (pcECMs) exhibiting tissue-specific bioactivity and bioinductive capacity when cultured with various pluripotent and multipotent stem cells. Here, we study the tissue-specific effects of the pcECM on seeded human mesenchymal stem cell (hMSC) phenotypes using reverse transcribed quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) arrays for cardiovascular related gene expression. We further corroborated interesting findings at the protein level (flow cytometry and immunological stains) as well as bioinformatically using several mRNA sequencing and protein databases of normal and pathologic adult and embryonic (organogenesis stage) tissue expression.