product photo of Gibco PSC Cardiomyocyte Differentiation Kit media bottles

Cardiomyocyte differentiation plays a critical role in advancing cardiac disease modeling, drug screening, and regenerative medicine. The Gibco PSC Cardiomyocyte Differentiation Kit offers a simple, efficient workflow for generating high-quality, functional cardiomyocytes from pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) in just 8 days. The kit is composed of:

  • Two serum-free and xeno-free media
  • One maintenance medium

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These preformulated media streamline the differentiation process while helping ensure consistency and reproducibility across PSC lines. You can expect:

  • Rapid results: High-quality cardiomyocytes in as few as 8 days.
  • Functional performance: Cells express key cardiac markers and physiological traits.

Watch cardiomyocytes

Contracting cardiomyocytes using PSC Cardiomyocyte Differentiation Kit

Researcher quotes

“The cardiomyocyte differentiation media has worked well. In just our first differentiation the cell morphology was very promising and occurred much quicker than with alternative products we have used. We are very happy with what we have seen so far.” Researcher, USA
“The kit worked out well for us, I tried 2 iPSC lines and 1 ESC line... The amount of contracting cells were significantly higher than any other protocol I've tried in the past so I'm very excited...” Researcher, USA
“The PSC Cardiomyocyte Differentiation Kit worked very well in our hands. Consisting of three different media that have to be added in a defined schedule to the iPSC culture, the Kit was very easy to handle. Mild contractions were observed seven days after induction of differentiation increasing to a robust beating matrix of cardiomyocytes until day 10.” Researcher Germany
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Validated cardiomyocyte differentiation workflows

In a recent collaboration, scientists at Stem Cell Theranostics used Thermo Fisher Scientific workflow reagents to develop stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes from patients with inherited hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM).

View the white paper describing their protocols and results

For more difficult to differentiate iPSC lines, our supplemental enrichment protocol will enable 10–30% greater efficiency. Cells can be characterized after differentiation using the Invitrogen Human Cardiomyocyte Immunocytochemistry Kit.

View the enrichment protocol


Ordering information for cardiomyocyte differentiation


Generate cardiomyocytes in as few as 8 days

schematic of the cardiomyocyte differentiation workflow

A simple protocol is used to initiate PSC induction to cardiomyocytes in as few as 8 days.

The protocol can be viewed on the left and includes:

  1. Harvest PSCs
  2. Passage PSCs in Essential 8 Medium
  3. Expand PSCs in Essential 8 Medium
  4. Refeed PSCs with Essential 8 Medium
  5. Replace medium with Cardiomyocyte Differentiation Medium A
  6. Replace medium with Cardiomyocyte Differentiation Medium B
  7. Replace medium with Cardiomyocyte Maintenance Medium
  8. Refeed every other day with Cardiomyocyte Maintenance Medium
  9. Characterize cardiomyocytes


How to differentiate pluripotent stem cells into cardiomyocytes

graph of 3 PSC lines differentiated into cardiomyocytes and % expressing TNNT2
Figure 1. Efficiency across multiple PSC lines. TrypLE-dissociated PSC lines were seeded at specific density onto Geltrex matrix–coated surface and cultured in Essential 8 media. After three days expansion, PSC lines at optimal confluency were induced using the PSC Cardiomyocyte Differentiation Kit according to protocol and cultured for two weeks. Cells were harvested and analyzed for TNNT2+ cells by flow cytometry. Results showed high cardiomyocyte differentiation efficiency among all lines when it reaches optimal confluency at time of induction.
fluorescence microscopy of cardiomyocytes stained for NKX2.5 (red), TNNT2/cTNT (green), and DAPI nuclear DNA counterstaining (blue)

Figure 2. Differentiated cardiomyocytes express NKX2.5 and TNNT2/cTNT markers. iPSCs were differentiated for 14 days using the PSC Cardiomyocyte Differentiation Kit. The cells were stained using the Human Cardiomyocyte Immunocytochemistry Kit for the following markers: NKX2.5 (red) for early cardiac mesoderm and TNNT2/cTNT (green) for cardiomyocytes along with DAPI nuclear DNA counterstaining (blue).

Figure 3. Cardioactive compounds can modulate PSC-derived cardiomyocyte contraction. These graphs show the response of spontaneous beat rate on cardiomyocytes differentiated using PSC Cardiomyocyte Differentiation Kit measured using Multi Electrode Array. (A) Cardiomyocyte waveform under baseline conditions. (B) Cardiomyocyte waveform under verapamil treatment conditions. (C) Effect of verapamil, an L-type Ca2+ channel blocker, on the spontaneous beat rate of H9-derived cardiomyocytes; at the highest dose level, cardiomyocyte contraction ceased. (D) Effect of isoproterenol, a beta-adrenergic receptor agonist, on the spontaneous beat rate of H9-derived cardiomyocytes.

Figure 4. H9 cells differentiated into cardiomyocytes using PSC Cardiomyocyte Differentiation Kit and labeled with Fluo-4 NW Calcium Assay Kit. Cardiomyocytes were placed back into cardiomyocyte maintenance media and imaged on EVOS FL Auto at 4x magnification using liteCam HD software capturing 30 frames per second.


How to generate contracting cardiomyocytes

  1. Efficiently reprogram somatic cells to pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) with the CytoTune-iPS 2.0 Reprogramming Kit
  2. Culture PSCs feeder-free with Essential 8 Medium
  3. Generate beating cardiomyocytes in as few as 8 days with the PSC Cardiomyocyte Differentiation Kit
  4. Effectively visualize cardiomyocyte markers with the tools you need in one box with the Human Cardiomyocyte Immunocytochemistry Kit
schematic of the four steps to generate contracting cardiomyocytes

Cardiomyocyte differentiation resources

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