The biochemical and electrophysiological profiles of amniotic fluid-derived stem cells following Wnt signaling modulation cardiac differentiation

a Representative images showed the appearance of undifferentiated and differentiated AFSCs, human embryonic stem cell (hESC) and hESC-derived cardiomyocytes (hESC-CMs). Undifferentiated AFSCs exhibited a heterogeneous morphology with a preponderance of fibroblastoid, mesenchymal-like cell shapes. After 14 days of differentiation, the morphology of AFSCs exhibited a rod-like appearance, different from that of human embryonic stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes. Scale bar, 200？μm. b Undifferentiated AFSCs and human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) expressed the pluripotent stem cell markers Nanog, Oct3/4, and SSEA4. At cardiac differentiation day 14, the expression of these 3 pluripotent stem cell markers significantly reduced in both differentiated AFSCs and hESC–derived cardiomyocytes (hESC-CMs