Poster #044, City of Hope
TFDP1 Promotes iPSC-CMs Proliferation Under Nucleosides Treatment
Mentors: Yin Wang, MD, PhD, PI: Zhao Wang, PhD
Ischemic heart disease remains a major cause of heart failure and death due to adult heart cells having limited regenerative capacity. This project investigates whether TFDP1, transcription factor Dp-1, a cell-cycle regulatory protein promotes cell division in Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). iPSCs will be differentiated into cardiomyocytes and used as a model to study cardiac regeneration. This project hypothesizes that TFDP1 is required for guanosine/thymidine (GT) nucleoside-driven cardiomyocyte proliferation. To test this, TFDP1 will be reduced in iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes using siRNA, followed by Western blot analysis of cell-cycle proteins. In parallel, PCR genotyping, CRISPR-Cas9 TFDP1 knockout, myocardial infarction modeling, one-month GT treatment, echocardiography, immunofluorescent staining for MKI67 and PCM1, and Masson staining will evaluate cardiac function, proliferation, and fibrosis in mouse heart tissue. These results will clarify TFDP1’s role in nucleoside-driven cardiac regeneration and support future therapies for ischemic heart disease.