Figure 1: Gene expression analysis of the hepatic differentiation of hESCs.

(a) Schematic of the protocol and stages of the hepatic differentiation of hESCs. Representative live photos as well as images of immunofluorescence staining of marker molecules at the indicated stages were shown. Scale bar, 20 μm. (b) Principal component (PC) analysis indicates the transitions that occur during differentiation. Gene loadings for PC1-3 were listed in Supplementary Fig. 2. (c) Expression of selected marker genes from the RNA-seq data. RNA-seq data of primary human hepatocytes (HC) and liver were listed as positive control. From top to bottom, the marker genes are: pluripotency (PL), definitive endoderm (DE), hepatoblast (HB), hepatocyte (HC) and EMT-related genes. RNA-seq data from primary human hepatocytes were taken from GSE43984, GSE57312 and liver SRR002322, GSE13652. (d) qRT-qPCR analysis of listed genes at the indicated stages of hepatic differentiation of hESCs (normalized to GAPDH). Data represent mean±s.d. from three biological repeats.