Wnt3a is involved in the early stage of miPSC and mESC haemopoietic differentiation

The Wnt/β-catenin signalling pathway is important in regulating not only self-renewal of haemopoietic progenitors and stem cells but also haemopoietic differentiation of ESCs (embryonic stem cells). However, it is still not clear how it affects haemopoietic differentiation. We have used a co-culture system for haemopoietic differentiation of mouse ESCs and iPSCs (induced pluripotent stem cells) in which the Wnt3a gene-modified OP9 cell line is used as stromal cells. The number of both Flk1+ and CD41+ cells generated from both co-cultured mouse ESCs and mouse iPSCs increased significantly, which suggest that Wnt3a is involved in the early stages of haemopoietic differentiation of mouse ESCs and mouse iPSCs in vitro.