Meeting Abstract
Human inducible stem cell derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs) are rapidly becoming the cell type of choice to study development and model disease, and for high throughput screening of drugs and small molecules. The use of hiPSC-CMs has required the development of platforms and protocols to mature cells and study their structure-function. Each of these has their advantages and limitations, and together they provide information at multiple length scales. Isolated contractile proteins can be studied with motility/microneedle force assays. The properties of the sub-cellular contractile organelles can be characterized in the absence of dynamic calcium transients in apparatus with rapid solution switching. Single cell studies of hiPSC-CMs can be performed with arrays of flexible microposts to measure the contraction force while also monitoring the calcium transients. The structure-function of hiPSC-CMs can also be studied within engineered heart tissue, which are three-dimensional tissue constructs that more closely mimic the microenvironment of the native myocardium. With these multi-scale platforms, it is possible to study human disease in the dish with patient-derived cardiomyocytes or gene-edited cells that recapture the phenotype of a disease.
