Controlling the contractile strength of engineered cardiac muscle by hierarchal tissue architecture.

ABSTRACT: The heart is a muscular organ with a wrapping, laminar structure embedded with neural and vascular networks, collagen fibrils, fibroblasts, and cardiac myocytes that facilitate contraction. We hypothesized that these non-muscle components may have functional benefit, serving as important structural alignment cues in inter- and intra-cellular organization of cardiac myocytes. Previous studies have demonstrated that alignment of engineered myocardium enhances calcium handling, but how this impacts actual force generation remains unclear. Quantitative assays are needed to determine the effect of alignment on contractile function and muscle physiology. To test this, micropatterned surfaces were used to build 2-dimensional myocardium from neonatal rat ventricular myocytes with distinct architec

SUBMITTER: Feinberg AW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4026933 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature