An electrically coupled tissue-engineered cardiomyocyte scaffold improves cardiac function in rats with chronic heart failure.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Varying strategies are currently being evaluated to develop tissue-engineered constructs for the treatment of ischemic heart disease. This study examines an angiogenic and biodegradable cardiac construct seeded with neonatal cardiomyocytes for the treatment of chronic heart failure (CHF).

Methods

We evaluated a neonatal cardiomyocyte (NCM)-seeded 3-dimensional fibroblast construct (3DFC) in vitro for the presence of functional gap junctions and the potential of the NCM-3DFC to restore left ventricular (LV) function in an in vivo rat model of CHF at 3 weeks after permanent left coronary artery ligation.

Results

The NCM-3DFC demonstrated extensive cell-to-cell connectivity after dye injection. At 5 days in culture, the patch contracted spontaneously in a rhyt

SUBMITTER: Lancaster JJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3966928 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature