Comparing mouse and human pluripotent stem cell derived cardiac cells: Both systems have advantages for pharmacological and toxicological screening

Pluripotent stem cells offer an unparalleled opportunity to investigate cardiac physiology, pharmacology, toxicology and pathophysiology. In this paper we describe the use of both mouse (Nkx2-5eGFP/w) and human (NKX2-5eGFP/w) pluripotent stem cell reporter lines, differentiated toward cardiac lineage, for live single cell high acquisition rate calcium imaging. We also assess the potential of NKX2-5eGFP/w cardiac lineage cells for use toxicological screening as well as establish their sensitivity to a shift between low and high oxygen environments. Differentiated mouse Nkx2-5eGFP/w cells demonstrated a wide range of spontaneous oscillation rates that could be reduced by ryanodine (10 μM), thapsigargin (1 μM) and ZD7288 (10 μM). In contrast human NKX2-5eGFP/w cell activity was only reduced by thapsigargin (1 μM). Human cell survival was sensitive to the addition of trastuzumab and doxorubicin, while the switch from a low to a high oxygen environment affected oscillation frequency. We suggest that the human NKX2-5eGFP/w cells are less suitable for studies of compounds affecting cardiac pacemaker activity than mouse Nkx2-5eGFP/w cells, but are very suitable for cardiac toxicity studies.