Biohybrid thin films for measuring contractility in engineered cardiovascular muscle.
In vitro cardiovascular disease models need to recapitulate tissue-scale function in order to provide in vivo relevance. We have developed a new method for measuring the contractility of engineered cardiovascular smooth and striated muscle in vitro during electrical and pharmacological stimulation. We present a growth theory-based finite elasticity analysis for calculating the contractile stresses of a 2D anisotropic muscle tissue cultured on a flexible synthetic polymer thin film. Cardiac muscle engineered with neonatal rat ventricular myocytes and paced at 0.5 Hz generated stresses of 9.2 +/- 3.5 kPa at peak systole, similar to measurements of the contractility of papillary muscle from adult rats. Vascular tissue engineered with human umbilical arterial smooth muscle cells maintained a basal contractile tone of 13.1 +/- 2.1 kPa and generated another 5.1 +/- 0.8 kPa when stimulated with endothelin-1. These data suggest that this method may be useful in assessing the efficacy and safety of pharmacological agents on cardiovascular tissue.
Disease Biophysics Group, Harvard Stem Cell Institute, Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
Patrick W
PW
Alford
Adam W
AW
Feinberg
Sean P
SP
Sheehy
Kevin K
KK
Parker
D000818:Animals; D000831:Animals, Newborn; D004129:Dimethylpolysiloxanes; D018625:Microscopy, Atomic Force; D009200:Myocardial Contraction; D009206:Myocardium; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D023822:Tissue Engineering
D004129:Dimethylpolysiloxanes; C013830:baysilon