The Human Pluripotent Stem Cell (hPSC) Naïve State Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction (qPCR) Array is designed for characterization of hPSCs and their status in the spectrum from naïve to primed pluripotency. Naïve state hPSCs are self-renewing, retain the properties of the pre-implantation blastocyst, can differentiate to all somatic lineages without lineage bias, and show potential to differentiate into the germ lineage. Primed hPSCs are also self-renewing and can contribute to all somatic lineages, however some lines show lineage-specific differentiation bias. This qPCR array provides the gene expression profile of primed and naïve state hPSCs. Genes were selected based on their demonstrated differential expression in primed and naïve state hPSCs (Chan et al.; Davidson et al.; Gafni et al.; Theunissen et al.; Takashima et al.) or in hPSC-derived early ectodermal, endodermal, and mesodermal lineage cells (Huang et al.).

qPCR is used to determine changes in steady-state mRNA levels of gene expression across multiple samples, generally normalized to the relative expression of internal control genes. Gene-specific primers amplify target sequences within cDNA pools reverse-transcribed from mRNA and, as with TaqMan® technology, hybridized sequence-specific probes provide a fluorescent signal from the 5' exonuclease activity of Taq DNA polymerase. The accumulation rate of the fluorescent signal is used to quantify the sample cDNA, and thereby the amount of mRNA in the original cell lysate.

This qPCR array contains validated primers and probes for detection of 90 genes whose expression is correlated with naïve and primed PSCs and their derivatives, as well as 6 endogenous (housekeeping) control genes. TBP (TATA box-binding protein) qPCR Control Template is provided as a synthetic DNA positive control. Additional gene information and a qPCR analysis tool are available at www.stemcell.com/qPCRanalysis