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Perlecan (HSPG2) signalling promotes structural, contractile, and metabolic development during the maturation stage of hPSC-CM differentiation

ABSTRACT: Perlecan (HSPG2), a multifunctional heparan sulphate proteoglycan (HSPG), is a key player in extracellular matrix maturation and stabilisation. Structurally perlecan is similar to agrin, another HSPG known to contribute to cardiomyocyte phenotype switching by reverting hypertrophy. Although perlecan is crucial for cardiac development, its role in cardiomyocyte phenotypic switching is unknown. Here we show perlecan expression increases over time during the differentiation of pluripotent stem cells to cardiomyocytes (hPSC-CMs). Haploinusuffient hPSCs (HSPG2+/-) differentiate efficiently towards cardiomyocytes with minimal transcriptomic differences seen early in differentiation, but wide-ranging changes seen in late-stage cardiomyocytes. These differences are associated with structural, contractile, metabolic, and ECM genes. In keeping, late-stageHSPG2+/-hPSC-CMs display reduced maximal metabolic capacity and increased extracellular acidification rate, characteristics of reduced maturity. Moreover, engineered heart tissues produced withHSPG2+/-hPSC-CMs exhibit increased ECM remodelling, reduced tissue thickness and force generation. Wild-type hPSC-CMs grown on a substrate coated with a perlecan peptide showed increased cardiomyocyte nucleation typical of hypertrophic growth, suggesting that perlecan plays the opposite role of agrin by promoting cellular maturation rather than hyperplasia and proliferation. These data show that perlecan promotes cardiomyocyte maturity, possibly through hypertrophic growth. Targeting perlecan-dependent signalling may, therefore, reverse the phenotypic switch common to many forms of heart failure, by improving cardiomyocyte functionality.

ORGANISM(S): Homo sapiens

PROVIDER: GSE229975 | GEO | 2024/01/23

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:Despite efforts to mature human pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (hPSC-CMs) for disease modeling and high throughput screening, cells remain immature and may not reflect adult biology. Recent advancements utilize electro-mechanical and paracrine stimulation to functionally mature cardiomyocytes, but the resulting engineered constructs continue to lack a microenvironment conducive to electrical signal propagation and maturity. Conductive polymers are attractive candidates to facilitate electrical communication between gaps in sparse hPSC-CM clusters or between hPSC-CMs to repair conduction defects. To create a conductive polymer platform for improved electrical signal propagation between hPSC-CMs and achieve electrical maturity, we electrospun poly(3,4-ethylendioxythiophene):polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS) blended with 8% (w/v) poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA). Matrix fiber structure remained stable over 4 weeks in buffer, stiffness remains near cardiac stiffness in vivo, and electrical conductivity scaled with PEDOT:PSS concentration. When fibroblasts were added to fibers, cells had higher initial attachment to PEDOT:PSS compared to PVA-only scaffolds, and after 5 days, over 90% of fibroblasts remained viable on PEDOT:PSS scaffolds compared to PVA-only scaffolds. Electrically excitable hPSC-CMs cultured on conductive substrates exhibited an upregulation of cardiac and muscle-related genes as opposed to non-conductive substrates. These cells further displayed increased desmoplakin (DP) localization on conductive scaffolds, indicating an improvement in the mechanical stability of our hPSC-CMs. Sarcomere organization also scaled with increasing PEDOT:PSS concentration, even in sub-monolayer cell densities, suggesting that improved organization of the contractile machinery in these cells was due to the electrical condition of the matrix. Calcium handling indicated higher calcium flux with a shorter time to peak, further suggesting improved electrical maturity, even when sub-confluent. Taken together, these data suggest that PEDOT:PSS/PVA scaffolds are stable, of a stiffness relevant to cardiomyocytes, and supportive of electrical coupling even in the absence of a monolayer, which may improve cardiac disease modeling and drug development.

Project description:The mammalian heart undergoes major transitions during postnatal life to acquire the physiological properties of an adult organ. Postnatal life imposes numerous adaptations including electrophysiological, structural and metabolic maturation of cardiomyocytes1, which occur coincident with loss of proliferative capacity and regenerative potential2,3. The discovery of key upstream drivers of cardiomyocyte maturation and cell cycle arrest remains one of the most important unanswered questions in cardiac biology. Discovery of these drivers would facilitate current attempts to promote cardiomyocyte maturation in vitro for drug discovery and to de-differentiate adult cardiomyocytes in vivo for regenerative medicine. A recent study has suggested that the shift from a low oxygen environment in utero towards a high oxygen environment after birth acts as a key trigger for cardiomyocyte cell cycle exit4. Moreover, it was recently demonstrated that proliferative adult cardiomyocytes reside in a hypoxic niche5 and that exposure of adult mice to gradual hypoxemia is sufficient to drive cell cycle re-entry and regeneration following infarction6. However, it is currently unclear whether postnatal changes in oxygen tension or the associated shifts in cardiomyocyte metabolism are sufficient to promote maturation and cell cycle arrest as human pluripotent stem cell (hPSC)-derived cardiomyocytes fail to mature when cultured at 21% oxygen7,8. There are considerable changes in metabolic substrate provision during early postnatal life. The mammalian heart relies on high concentrations of carbohydrates and the presence of insulin in utero but later switches to fatty acid dominated substrates present in milk and low insulin levels post-birth9. In order to adapt to these changes in substrates, cardiomyocytes upregulate the genes required for fatty acid oxidation after birth10. The importance of these metabolic adaptations for cardiomyocyte maturation has been difficult to study because genetic disruption of fatty acid oxidation components in vivo can have a broad range of negative health impacts11. Therefore, there is a need to develop alternative approaches for studying the impact of cardiomyocyte metabolism on the maturation process. hPSCs are now widely used for the generation of defined human somatic cell types, including cardiomyocytes. These cardiomyocytes have now been used extensively for developmental studies, drug screening, disease modeling, and heart repair. However, lack of maturity and inappropriate responses to pharmacological agents have been identified as limitations in 2D or embryoid body based differentiation strategies12. To improve maturity of hPSC-derived cardiomyocytes, long-term culture can be used13, although long-term cultures may not be amenable to high-throughput screening applications and adult-like maturity is still not achieved14. In an effort to better simulate heart muscle structure and function, cardiac tissue engineering to form 3D engineered heart tissue has been used15-19. However, despite these recent advances in human cardiac tissue engineering, cardiac tissues derived from hPSC still lack many features of fully mature adult heart tissue20. Moreover, engineered heart tissue fabrication, culture, mechanical loading and pacing protocols, and analysis methods using organ baths are costly, labor intensive, and the multiple handling steps induce variability. In order to facilitate higher-throughput experiments, platforms for engineered heart tissue production have been miniaturized, however, screening experiments using semi-automated force of contraction analyses have only been published in 24-well plate formats21. Therefore, we developed a novel 96-well device, the heart dynamometer (Heart-Dyno), for high-throughput functional screening of human cardiac organoids (hCOs) to facilitate screening on a larger scale. The Heart-Dyno is designed to facilitate automated formation of dense muscle bundles from minimal cells and reagents while also facilitating culture and automated force of contraction analysis without any tissue handling. Using the Heart-Dyno, we define serum-free 3D culture conditions that promote structural, electrophysiological, metabolic and proliferative maturation of hPSC-derived cardiac organoids. Furthermore, we uncover a metabolic mechanism governing cardiomyocyte cell cycle arrest through repression of a β-catenin and YAP1 dependent signalling.

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Perlecan (HSPG2) signalling promotes structural, contractile, and metabolic development during the maturation stage of hPSC-CM differentiation

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