The Applied Biosystems™ TaqMan™ Human Stem Cell Pluripotency Array is an efficient, easy-to-use micro fluidic card for the characterization of undifferentiated stem cells or their differentiated derivatives. This gene signature panel contains 90 well-defined genes validated as markers for pluripotency plus 6 endogenous controls. The format of the TaqMan Array allows for 1-4 replicates to be run in parallel per array. This product is sold in packages of 4 cards.

The Human Stem Cell Pluripotency Array contains a well-defined set of validated gene expression markers to characterize human embryonic stem (ES) cell identity and assess phenotypic variations between embryonic stem cell isolates. The gene content on this TaqMan Array resulted directly from the work of the I.S.C.I consortium and characterization of human embryonic stem cell lines by the International Stem Cell Initiative.

The array is pre-formatted and inventoried, cost-effective, convenient and easy to use without needing expensive robotics. Results are reproducible and consistent across samples, studies, and labs – the same data quality from card-to-card and lot-to-lot – even with different operators.

The Right Targets

These TaqMan Arrays use Applied Biosystem's proprietary micro fluidics technology to simultaneously analyze gene expression levels by quantitative PCR for 92 test genes and 6 endogenous controls. Genes were included based on the following criteria:

1. Expression in human embryonal carcinoma cells (hEC), primordial germ cells or human ES (hES) cells
2. Known role in maintenance of pluripotency in hES cells
3. Identification in microarray-based experiments as being correlated with the stem cell state
4. Expression known to be characteristic of specific differentiation lineages in the post implantation embryo and mature tissues. These are the right targets to characterize embryonic stem cells.