A subscription to JoVE is required to view this content. Sign in or start your free trial.
Here, we describe an easy-to-use methodology to generate 3D self-assembled cardiac microtissue arrays composed of pre-differentiated human-induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes, cardiac fibroblasts, and endothelial cells. This user-friendly and low cell requiring technique to generate cardiac microtissues can be implemented for disease modeling and early stages of drug development.
Generation of human cardiomyocytes (CMs), cardiac fibroblasts (CFs), and endothelial cells (ECs) from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) has provided a unique opportunity to study the complex interplay among different cardiovascular cell types that drives tissue development and disease. In the area of cardiac tissue models, several sophisticated three-dimensional (3D) approaches use induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (iPSC-CMs) to mimic physiological relevance and native tissue environment with a combination of extracellular matrices and crosslinkers. However, these systems are complex to fabricate without microfabrication expertise and require several weeks to self-assemble. Most importantly, many of these systems lack vascular cells and cardiac fibroblasts that make up over 60% of the nonmyocytes in the human heart. Here we describe the derivation of all three cardiac cell types from iPSCs to fabricate cardiac microtissues. This facile replica molding technique allows cardiac microtissue culture in standard multi-well cell culture plates for several weeks. The platform allows user-defined control over microtissue sizes based on initial seeding density and requires less than 3 days for self-assembly to achieve observable cardiac microtissue contractions. Furthermore, the cardiac microtissues can be easily digested while maintaining high cell viability for single-cell interrogation with the use of flow cytometry and single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq). We envision that this in vitro model of cardiac microtissues will help accelerate validation studies in drug discovery and disease modeling.
Drug discovery and disease modeling in the field of cardiovascular research face several challenges due to a lack of clinically relevant samples and inadequate translational tools1. Highly complex pre-clinical models or oversimplified in vitro single-cell models do not exhibit pathophysiological conditions in a reproducible manner. Therefore, several miniaturized tissue-engineered platforms have evolved to help bridge the gap, with the goal of achieving a balance between ease of application in a high-throughput manner and faithful recapitulation of tissue function2,3. With the ....
1. Medium, reagent, culture plate preparation
Immunostaining and flow cytometry characterization of iPSC-derived CMs, ECs, and CFs
To generate cardiac microtissues composed of iPSC-CMs, iPSC-ECs, and iPSC-CFs, all three cell types are differentiated and characterized individually. In vitro differentiation of iPSCs to iPSC-CMs has improved over the past several years. However, the yield and purity of iPSC-CMs differ from line to line. The current protocol yields over 75% pure iPSC-CMs that spontaneously start beating around day 9 (
To generate cardiac microtissues from pre-differentiated iPSC-CMs, iPSC-ECs, and iPSC-CFs, it is essential to obtain a highly pure culture for better control of cell numbers after contact-inhibited cell compaction within the cardiac microtissues. Recently, Giacomelli et. al.18 have demonstrated the fabrication of cardiac microtissues using iPSC-CMs, iPSC-ECs, and iPSC-CFs. Cardiac microtissues generated using the described method consist of ~5,000 cells (70% iPSC-CMs, 15% iPSC-ECs, and 15% iPSC-CF.......
We thank Dr. Amanda Chase for her helpful feedback on the manuscript. Funding support was provided by the Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program (TRDRP) of the University of California, T29FT0380 (D.T.) and 27IR-0012 (J.C.W.); American Heart Association 20POST35210896 (H.K.) and 17MERIT33610009 (J.C.W.); and National Institutes of Health (NIH) R01 HL126527, R01 HL123968, R01 HL150693, R01 HL141851, and NIH UH3 TR002588 (J.C.W).
....Name | Company | Catalog Number | Comments |
12-well plates | Fisher Scientific | 08-772-29 | |
3D micro-molds | Microtissues | 12-81 format | |
6-well plates | Fisher Scientific | 08-772-1B | |
AutoMACS Rinsing Solution | Thermo Fisher Scientific | NC9104697 | |
B27 Supplement minus Insulin | Life Technologies | A1895601 | |
B27 Supplement plus Insulin | Life Technologies | 17504-044 | |
BD Cytofix | BD Biosciences | 554655 | |
BD Matrigel, hESC-qualified matrix | BD Biosciences | 354277 | |
Cardiac Troponin T Antibody | Miltenyi | 130-120-403 | |
CD144 (VE-Cadherin) MicroBeads | Miltenyi | 130-097-857 | |
CD31 Antibody | Miltenyi | 130-110-670 | |
CD31 Microbeads | Miltenyi | 130-091-935 | |
CHIR-99021 | Selleckchem | S2924 | |
DDR2 | Santa Cruz Biotechnology | sc-81707 | |
Dead Cell Apoptosis Kit with Annexin V FITC and PI | Thermo Fisher Scientific | V13242 | |
Dispase I | Millipore Sigma | 4942086001 | |
DMEM, high glucose (4.5g/L) no glutamine medium | 11960044 | ||
DMEM/F-12 basal medium | Gibco | 11320033 | |
Dulbecco's phosphate buffered saline (DPBS), no calcium, no magnesium | Life Technologies | 14190-136 | |
EGM2 BulletKit | Lonza | CC-3124 | |
Fetal bovine serum | Life Technologies | 10437 | |
FibroLife Serum-Free Fibroblast LifeFactors Kit | LifeLIne Cell Technology | LS-1010 | |
Glucose free RPMI medium | Life Technologies | 11879-020 | |
Goat serum | Life Technologies | 16210-064 | |
Human FGF-basic | Thermo Fisher Scientific | 13256029 | |
Human VEGF-165 | PeproTech | 100-20 | |
IWR-1-endo | Selleckchem | S7086 | |
Liberase TL | Millipore Sigma | 5401020001 | |
LS Sorting Columns | Miltenyi | 130-042-401 | |
MACS BSA Stock solution | Miltenyi | 130-091-376 | |
MACS Rinsing Buffer | Miltenyi | 130-091-222 | |
MidiMACS Separator | Miltenyi | 130-042-302 | |
RPMI medium | Life Technologies | 11835055 | |
SB431542 | Selleckchem | S1067 | |
TO-PRO 3 | Thermo Fisher Scientific | R37170 | |
Triton X-100 | Millipore Sigma | X100-100ML | |
TrypLE Select 10X | Thermo Fisher Scientific | red | |
Vimentin Alexa Fluor® 488-conjugated Antibody | R&D Systems | IC2105G |
This article has been published
Video Coming Soon
ABOUT JoVE
Copyright © 2024 MyJoVE Corporation. All rights reserved