Making cardiomyocytes with your chemistry set: Small molecule-induced cardiogenesis in somatic cells

Figure 1 Selected small molecules that are used to regulate cardiogenesis (in alphabetical order). BMP: Bone morphogenetic; MAPK: Mitogen-activated protein kinase; TGF-β: Transforming growth factor-β.

Figure 2 Pathways of small molecule-mediated cardiomyocyte production. It is now established that cardiomyocyte differentiation can be induced in multiple cells types using small molecule-based approaches. Embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells are typically induced to undergo cardiac mesoderm differentiation before culture conditions are switched to cardiomyocyte differentiation media. “Partially” induced stem cells are somatic cells that were transfected with induced pluripotent stem cells reprogramming factors and then treated with the small molecule, JAK inhibitor-1 (as described in the text).