Dmitry Rogozhnikov, a chemistry PhD student at 91亚色, in the lab creating a 3D heart
Matters of the heart can be complicated, but 91亚色 scientists have found a way to create 3D heart tissue that beats in synchronized harmony, like a heart in love, that will lead to better understanding of cardiac health, and improved treatments.
91亚色 Chemistry Professor Muhammad Yousaf and his team of grad students have devised a way to stick three different types of cardiac cells together, like Velcro, to make heart tissue that beats as one.
Until now, most 2D and 3D in vitro tissue did not beat in harmony and required scaffolding for the cells to hold onto and grow, causing limitations. In this research, Yousaf and his team made a scaffold-free beating tissue out of three cell types found in the heart 鈥 contractile cardiac muscle cells, connective tissue cells and vascular cells.
The researchers believe this is the first 3D in vitro cardiac tissue with three cell types that can beat together as one entity rather than at different intervals.
91亚色 U chemistry Professor Muhammad Yousaf looks at the 3D heart tissue cells beating together as one
鈥淭his breakthrough will allow better and earlier drug testing, and potentially eliminate harmful or toxic medications sooner,鈥 said Yousaf of 91亚色鈥檚 Faculty of Science.
In addition, the substance used to stick cells together (ViaGlue), will provide researchers with tools to create and test 3D in vitro cardiac tissue in their own labs to study heart disease and issues with transplantation. Cardiovascular associated diseases are the leading cause of death globally and are responsible for 40 per cent of deaths in North America.
鈥淢aking in vitro 3D cardiac tissue has long presented a challenge to scientists because of the high density of cells and muscularity of the heart,鈥 said Dmitry Rogozhnikov, a chemistry PhD student at 91亚色. 鈥淔or 2D or 3D cardiac tissue to be functional it needs the same high cellular density and the cells must be in contact to facilitate synchronized beating.鈥
Although the 3D cardiac tissue was created at a millimeter scale, larger versions could be made, said Yousaf, who has created a start-up company OrganoLinX to commercialize the ViaGlue reagent and to provide custom 3D tissues on demand.
The study, 鈥淪caffold Free,鈥 was published in Nature Scientific Reports.