"Cardiac tissue engineering"

Engineered human cardiac tissues have been utilized for various biomedical applications, including drug testing, disease modeling, and regenerative medicine. However, the applications of cardiac tissues derived from human pluripotent stem cells are often limited due to their immaturity and lack of functionality. Therefore, in this study, we establish a perfusable culture system based on in vivo-like heart microenvironments to improve human cardiac tissue fabrication. The integrated culture platform of a microfluidic chip and a three-dimensional heart extracellular matrix enhances human cardiac tissue development and their structural and functional maturation...

The ultimate goal of cardiac tissue engineering is to generate new muscle to repair or replace the damaged heart. This requires advances in stem cell technologies to differentiate billions of cardiomyocytes, together with advanced biofabrication approaches such as 3D bioprinting to achieve the requisite structure and contractile function. In this concise review, we cover recent progress in 3D bioprinting of cardiac tissue using pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes, key design criteria for engineering aligned cardiac tissues, and ongoing challenges in the field that must be addressed to realize this goal...

BACKGROUND: In preclinical studies, the use of double allogeneic grafts has shown promising results in promoting tissue revascularization, reducing infarct size, preventing adverse remodelling and fibrosis, and ultimately enhancing cardiac function. Building upon these findings, the safety of PeriCord, an engineered tissue graft consisting of a decellularised pericardial matrix and umbilical cord Wharton's jelly mesenchymal stromal cells, was evaluated in the PERISCOPE Phase I clinical trial (NCT03798353), marking its first application in human subjects...

Tissue engineering provides promise for regeneration of cardiac tissue following myocardial infarction. However, the harsh microenvironment of the infarct hampers the efficacy of regenerative therapies. Ischemia-reperfusion injury dramatically increases the levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) within the infarcted area, causing a cascade of further cellular injury. Implantable tissue engineered grafts can target this oxidative stress by delivering pharmaceutical compounds directly into the diseased tissue...

A life-threatening illness that poses a serious threat to human health is myocardial infarction. It may result in a significant number of myocardial cells dying, dilated left ventricles, dysfunctional heart function, and ultimately cardiac failure. Based on the development of emerging biomaterials and the lack of clinical treatment methods and cardiac donors for myocardial infarction, hydrogels with good compatibility have been gradually applied to the treatment of myocardial infarction. Specifically, based on the three processes of pathophysiology of myocardial infarction, we summarized various types of hydrogels designed for myocardial tissue engineering in recent years, including natural hydrogels, intelligent hydrogels, growth factors, stem cells, and microRNA-loaded hydrogels...

Electroactive materials are increasingly being used in strategies to regenerate cardiac tissue. These materials, particularly those with electrical conductivity, are used to actively recreate the electromechanical nature of the cardiac tissue. In the present work, we describe a novel combination of poly(vinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene) (P(VDF-TrFE)), a highly electroactive polymer, with graphene (G), exhibiting high electrical conductivity. G/P(VDF-TrFE) films have been characterized in terms of topographical, physico-chemical, mechanical, electrical, and thermal properties, and studied the response of cardiomyocytes adhering to them...

Constructing three-dimensional (3D) aligned nanofiber scaffolds is significant for the development of cardiac tissue engineering, which is promising in the field of drug discovery and disease mechanism study. However, the current nanofiber scaffold preparation strategy, which mainly includes manual assembly and hybrid 3D printing, faces the challenge of integrated fabrication of morphology-controllable nanofibers due to its cross-scale structural feature. In this research, a trench-guided electrospinning (ES) strategy was proposed to directly fabricate 3D aligned nanofiber scaffolds with alternative ES and a direct ink writing (DIW) process...

The conduction efficiency of ions in excitable tissues and of charged species in organic conjugated materials both benefit from having ordered domains and anisotropic pathways. In this study, we present a photocurrent-generating cardiac biointerface that investigates the sensitivity of cardiomyocytes to geometrically comply to biomacromolecular cues differentially assembled on a conductive nanogrooved substrate. Through a polymeric surface-templated approach, photoconductive substrates with symmetric peptide-quaterthiophene (4T)-peptide units assembled as 1D nanostructures on nanoimprinted polyalkylthiophene (P3HT) surface are developed...

INTRODUCTION: Biomaterials currently utilized for the regeneration of myocardial tissue seem to associate with certain restrictions, including deficiency of electrical conductivity and sufficient mechanical strength. These two factors play an important role in cardiac tissue engineering and regeneration. The contractile property of cardiomyocytes depends on directed signal transmission over the electroconductive systems that happen inside the innate myocardium. Because of their distinctive electrical behavior, electroactive materials such as graphene might be used for the regeneration of cardiac tissue...

Electrically conductive biomaterials and nanomaterials have demonstrated great potential in the development of functional and mature cardiac tissues. In particular, gold nanomaterials have emerged as promising candidates due to their biocompatibility and ease of fabrication for cardiac tissue engineering utilizing rat- or stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (CMs). However, despite significant advancements, it is still not clear whether the enhancement in cardiac tissue function is primarily due to the electroconductivity features of gold nanoparticles or the structural changes of the scaffold resulting from the addition of these nanoparticles...

Cardiovascular diseases, particularly myocardial infarction (MI), remain a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Current treatments for MI, more palliative than curative, have limitations in reversing the disease completely. Tissue engineering (TE) has emerged as a promising strategy to address this challenge and may lead to improved therapeutic approaches for MI. Gelatin-based scaffolds, including gelatin and its derivative, gelatin methacrylate (GelMA), have attracted significant attention in cardiac tissue engineering (CTE) due to their optimal physical and biochemical properties and capacity to mimic the native extracellular matrix (ECM)...

Neo-tissue formation and host tissue regeneration determine the success of cardiac tissue engineering where functional hydrogel scaffolds act as cardiac (extracellular matrix) ECM mimic. Translationally, the hydrogel templates promoting neo-cardiac tissue formation are currently limited; however, they are highly demanding in cardiac tissue engineering. The current study focused on the development of a panel of four chitosan-based polyelectrolyte hydrogels as cardiac scaffolds facilitating neo-cardiac tissue formation to promote cardiac regeneration...

Cardiac failure can be a life-threatening condition that, if left untreated, can have significant consequences. Functional hydrogel has emerged as a promising platform for cardiac tissue engineering. In the proposed study, gelatin methacrylate (GelMA) and alginate, as a primary matrix to maintain cell viability and proliferation, and polypyrrole and carboxyl-graphene, to improve mechanical and electrical properties, are thoroughly evaluated. Initially, a polymer blend of GelMA/Alginate (1:1) was prepared, and then the addition of 2-5 wt% of polypyrrole was evaluated...

Plant-based hydrogels have wide application as scaffolds in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine due to their low cost and excellent biocompatibility. Scaffolds act as vehicles for cell-based therapeutics and regenerating diseased tissue. While there is a plethora of methods to generate hydrogels with tunable properties to mimic the tissue of interest, 3D bioprinting is a novel emerging technology with the capability to generate versatile patient-specific scaffolds typically embedded with tissue specific cells...

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We present a simple low-cost system for comprehensive functional characterization of cardiac function under spontaneous and paced conditions, in standard 96 and 384-well plates. This full-plate actuator/imager, OptoDyCE-plate, uses optogenetic stimulation and optical readouts of voltage and calcium (parallel recordings from up to 100 wells in 384-well plates are demonstrated). The system is validated with syncytia of human induced pluripotent stem cell derived cardiomyocytes, iPSC-CMs, grown as monolayers, or in quasi-3D isotropic and anisotropic constructs using electrospun matrices, in 96 and 384-well format...

Each year in the United States approximately 10,000 babies are born with a complex congenital heart defect (CHD) requiring surgery in the first year of after birth. Several of these operations require the implantation of a full-thickness heart patch; however, the current patch materials available to pediatric heart surgeons are exclusively non-living and non-degradable, which do not grow with the patient and are prone to fail due to an inability to integrate with the heart. In this work, the goal was to develop a full-thickness, tissue engineered myocardial patch (TEMP) that is made from biodegradable components, strong enough to withstand the mechanical forces of the heart wall, and able to integrate with the heart and drive neotissue formation...

Myocardial infarction is one of the major causes of mortality as well as morbidity around the world. Currently available treatment options face a number of drawbacks, hence cardiac tissue engineering, which aims to bioengineer functional cardiac tissue, for application in tissue repair, patient specific drug screening and disease modeling, is being explored as a viable alternative. To achieve this, an appropriate combination of cells, biomimetic scaffolds mimicking the structure and function of the native tissue, and signals, is necessary...

Among non-communicable diseases, cardiovascular diseases are the most prevalent, accounting for approximately 17 million deaths per year. Despite conventional treatment, cardiac tissue engineering emerges as a potential alternative for the advancement and treatment of these patients, using biomaterials to replace or repair cardiac tissues. Among these materials, gelatin in its methacrylated form (GelMA) is a biodegradable and biocompatible polymer with adjustable biophysical properties. Furthermore, gelatin has the ability to replace and perform collagen-like functions for cell development in vitro...

The helical arrangement of cardiac muscle fibres underpins the contractile properties of the heart chamber. Across the heart wall, the helical angle of the aligned fibres changes gradually across the range of 90-180°. It is essential to recreate this structural hierarchy in vitro for developing functional artificial tissue. Ice templating can achieve single-oriented pore alignment via unidirectional ice solidification with a flat base mould design. We hypothesise that the orientation of aligned pores can be controlled simply via base topography, and we propose a scalable base design to recapitulate the transmural fibre orientation...