title: Dependence of the community effect of cultured cardiomyocytes on the cell network pattern.
abstract: To elucidate the role of the community effect in cardiomyocytes, we developed an on-chip single-cell-based culture system with which the dynamics of the change of beat rate and beat rate fluctuation of cultured cardiomyocytes can be measured at the single-cell level before and after the formation of a cell network. We examined the dependence of the community effect on cell network pattern by culturing cardiomyocytes in differently shaped microchambers and investigated the relation between the network pattern and the stability of the beat rate. We found that beat rate fluctuation tends to decrease as cell-community size increases, irrespective of cell network pattern. This indicates that on-chip single-cell-based cardiomyocyte communities might be able to model a heart tissue accurately enough to be used in practical applications such as drug screening.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Information, Institute of Biomaterials and Bioengineering, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 101-0062, Japan.
authors.forename: Tomoyuki
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kaneko
authors.forename: Kensuke
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kojima
authors.forename: Kenji
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yasuda
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002450:Cell Communication / Q000502:physiology*; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D006339:Heart Rate / Q000502:physiology; D051379:Mice; D008954:Models, Biological; D032383:Myocytes, Cardiac / Q000502:physiology*; D010507:Periodicity