Abstract 304: Efficient Generation of Cardiac Purkinje Fiber-like Cells From ESCs by Activating cAMP Signaling

Dysfunction of the cardiac conduction system (CCS) significantly impacts pathogenesis of arrhythmia, a major cause of morbidity and mortality. Strategies to derive cardiac conduction cells including Purkinje fiber cells (PC) would facilitate models for mechanistic studies and drug discovery, and also provide new cellular materials for regenerative therapies. A high-throughput chemical screen using CCS:lacZ and Contactin2:eGFP (Cntn2:eGFP) reporter embryonic stem cell (ESC) lines was used to discover a small molecule, sodium nitroprusside (SN), that efficiently promotes the generation of cardiac cells that express gene profiles and generate action potentials of PC-like cells. Imaging and mechanistic studies suggest that SN promotes the generation of PC from cardiac progenitors initially expressing cardiac myosin heavy chain, and that it does so by activating cAMP signaling. These findings provide a novel strategy to derive scalable PC, along with insight into the ontogeny of CCS development.