Experimentally-guided in silico design of engineered heart tissues to improve cardiac electrical function after myocardial infarction

Rosales, Ricardo M. ; Mountris, Konstantinos A. ; Oliván-Viguera, Aida ; Pérez-Zabalza, María ; Cedillo-Servin, Gerardo ; Iglesias-García, Olalla ; Hrynevich, Andrei ; Castilho, Miguel ; Malda, Jos ; Prósper, Felipe ; Doblaré, Manuel (Universidad de Zaragoza) ; Mazo, Manuel M. ; Pueyo, Esther (Universidad de Zaragoza)

Resumen: Engineered heart tissues (EHTs) built from human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs) showed promising results for cardiac function restoration following myocardial infarction. Nevertheless, human iPSC-CMs have longer action potential and lower cell-to-cell coupling than adult-like CMs. These immature electrophysiological properties favor arrhythmias due to the generation of electrophysiological gradients when hiPSC-CMs are injected in the cardiac tissue. Culturing hiPSC-CMs on three-dimensional (3D) scaffolds can promote their maturation and influence their alignment. However, it is still uncertain how on-scaffold culturing influences the overall electrophysiology of the in vitro and implanted EHTs, as it requires expensive and time consuming experimentation. Here, we computationally investigated the impact of the scaffold design on the EHT electrical depolarization and repolarization before and after engraftment on infarcted tissue. We first acquired and processed electrical recordings from in vitro EHTs, which we used to calibrate the modeling and simulation of in silico EHTs to replicate experimental outcomes. Next, we built in silico EHT models for a range of scaffold pore sizes, shapes (square, rectangular, auxetic, hexagonal) and thicknesses. In this setup, we found that scaffolds made of small (0.2 mm2), elongated (30° half-angle) hexagons led to faster EHT activation and better mimicked the cardiac anisotropy. The scaffold thickness had a marginal role on the not engrafted EHT electrophysiology. Moreover, EHT engraftment on infarcted tissue showed that the EHT conductivity should be at least 5% of that in healthy tissue for bidirectional EHT-myocardium electrical propagation. For conductivities above such threshold, the scaffold made of small elongated hexagons led to the lowest activation time (AT) in the coupled EHT-myocardium. If the EHT conductivity was further increased and the hiPSC-CMs were uniformly oriented parallel to the epicardial cells, the total AT and the repolarization time gradient decreased substantially, thus minimizing the likelihood for arrhythmias after EHT transplantation.

Idioma: Inglés

DOI: 10.1016/j.compbiomed.2024.108044

Año: 2024

Publicado en: Computers in biology and medicine 171 (2024), 108044 [13 pp.]
ISSN: 0010-4825

Financiación: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/DGA/LMP94_21
Financiación: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/DGA/T39-23R
Financiación: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EUR/ERC-2014-StG-638284
Financiación: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/874827/EU/Computational biomechanics and bioengineering 3D printing to develop a personalized regenerative biological ventricular assist device to provide lasting functional support to damaged hearts/BRAV3
Financiación: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MCIN/PLEC2021-008127
Financiación: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MICINN/PID2019-105674RB-I00
Financiación: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MICINN/PID2022-140556OB-I00
Financiación: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EUR/MICINN/TED2021-130459B-I00

Tipo y forma: Artículo (Versión definitiva)

Área (Departamento): Área Teoría Señal y Comunicac. (Dpto. Ingeniería Electrón.Com.)
Área (Departamento): Área Mec.Med.Cont. y Teor.Est. (Dpto. Ingeniería Mecánica)