Importance of beating rate control for the analysis of drug effects on contractility in human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes.

Cardiac contractility evaluation using human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs) has recently attracted much attention as a clinical cardiotoxicity predictive model. Most studies on this were conducted under spontaneous beating conditions and involved video-based analyses. Cardiac contractility is known to be influenced by beating rates; accordingly, beating rate control is recommended to accurately analyze the effects of drugs on cardiac contractility. Therefore, we investigated the relationship between contraction parameters and beating rates of cardiac cell sheet tissues by directly measuring the contraction force and compared the effects of ion channel drugs (mexiletine, ranolazine, and dofetilide) on contraction parameters under spontaneous beating conditions with those under pacing (1 Hz) conditions. To characterize the contraction/relaxation kinetics, we introduced a novel analysis tool, called a "C-V loop," a plot of contraction force versus force-changing rate ("velocity"). When we increased the beating rate, the contraction force, force-changing rate, and relaxation time markedly decreased. The occurrence frequencies of beating arrest and irregular beats at high concentration ranges of mexiletine and ranolazine were more suppressed in paced samples than in spontaneously beating ones. We also found that relaxation time increased by treatment with dofetilide and contraction amplitude decreased in a concentration-dependent manner by mexiletine treatment only in the samples under pacing. These drug responses were consistent with the previous reports using human samples. These results indicated that beating rate control is necessary to stably evaluate the effects of drugs on contractility and that tests under 1-Hz pacing are more relevant to clinical settings.

Low-temperature culturing improves survival rate of tissue-engineered cardiac cell sheets.

Assembling three-dimensional (3D) tissues from single cells necessitates the use of various advanced technological methods because higher-density tissues require numerous complex capillary structures to supply sufficient oxygen and nutrients. Accordingly, creating healthy culture conditions to support 3D cardiac tissues requires an appropriate balance between the supplied nutrients and cell metabolism. The objective of this study was to develop a simple and efficient method for low-temperature cultivation (< 37 °C) that decreases cell metabolism for facilitating the buildup of 3D cardiac tissues. We created 3D cardiac tissues using cell sheet technology and analyzed the viability of the cardiac cells in low-temperature environments. To determine a method that would allow thicker 3D tissues to survive, we investigated the cardiac tissue viability under low-temperature culture processes at 20-33.5 °C and compared it with the viability under the standard culture process at 37 °C. Our results indicated that the standard culture process at 37 °C was unable to support higher-density myocardial tissue; however, low-temperature culture conditions maintained dense myocardial tissue and prevascularization. To investigate the efficiency of transplantation, layered cell sheets produced by the low-temperature culture process were also transplanted under the skin of nude rats. Cardiac tissue cultured at 30 °C developed denser prevascular networks than the tissue cultured at the standard temperature. Our novel findings indicate that the low-temperature process is effective for fabricating 3D tissues from high-functioning cells such as heart cells. This method should make major contributions to future clinical applications and to the field of organ engineering.