Contractile force generation by 3D hiPSC-derived cardiac tissues is enhanced by rapid establishment of cellular interconnection in matrix with muscle-mimicking stiffness.

ABSTRACT: Engineering 3D human cardiac tissues is of great importance for therapeutic and pharmaceutical applications. As cardiac tissue substitutes, extracellular matrix-derived hydrogels have been widely explored. However, they exhibit premature degradation and their stiffness is often orders of magnitude lower than that of native cardiac tissue. There are no reports on establishing interconnected cardiomyocytes in 3D hydrogels at physiologically-relevant cell density and matrix stiffness. Here we bioengineer human cardiac microtissues by encapsulating human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs) in chemically-crosslinked gelatin hydrogels (1.25 × 10⁸/mL) with tunable stiffness and degradation. In comparison to the cells in high stiffness (16 kPa)/slow degradin

SUBMITTER: Lee S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5558787 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature