Differentiation and characterization of rhesus monkey atrial and ventricular cardiomyocytes from induced pluripotent stem cells

- A feeder-free culture system can support rhesus induced pluripotent stem cells long-term self-renewal.
- Rhesus monkey atrial and ventricular cardiomyocytes (CMs) are differentiated efficiently.
- The electrophysiological characteristics and response to canonical drugs of rhesus CMs are similar with those of human CMs.

The combination of non-human primate animals and their induced pluripotent stem cell derived cardiomyocytes (iPSC-CMs) provides not only transplantation models for cell-based therapy of heart diseases, but also opportunities for heart-related drug research on both cellular and animal levels. However, the subtypes and electrophysiology properties of non-human primate iPSC-CMs hadn't been detailed characterized. In this study, we generated rhesus monkey induced pluripotent stem cells (riPSCs), and efficiently differentiated them into ventricular or atrial cardiomyocytes by modulating retinoic acid (RA) pathways. Our results revealed that the electrophysiological characteristics and response to canonical drugs of riPSC-CMs were similar with those of human pluripotent stem cell derived CMs. Therefore, rhesus monkeys and their iPSC-CMs provide a powerful and practicable system for heart related biomedical research.