Direct Cardiac Reprogramming: Progress and Promise

Table 3

Criteria to evaluate reprogramming efficiency. Adapted from Addis and Epstein [63].

Characteristic	Stringency	Assay technique(s)
Gene expression	Low	RT-qPCR; Reporter transgene
Protein expression	Low	Immunostaining; Flow cytometry; Western blot
Transcriptome and epigenetic analysis	High	Microarray; RNA-seq; ChIP-seq; ATAC-seq
Contraction and force generation	High	Spontaneous; Chemical stimulation; Electrical stimulation; Three-dimensional bioengineered platforms
Electrophysiological	High	Patch clamp; Microelectrode arrays; Optical mapping
Calcium transients and electrical coupling	High	Calcium-sensitive dyes; Genetically encoded indicators (GCaMP); Optical mapping
Functional improvement	High	Echocardiography