
A novel high-throughput assay enables the generation of 3D cardiac tissues for drug testing and disease modeling.


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We developed a 96-well plate assay which allows fast, reproducible and high-throughput generation of 3D cardiac rings around a deformable optically transparent hydrogel (PEG) pillar of known stiffness. Human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes, mixed with normal human adult dermal fibroblasts in an optimized 3:1 ratio, self-organized to form ring-shaped cardiac constructs. Immunostaining showed that the fibroblasts form a basal layer in contact with the glass, stabilizing the muscular fiber above. Tissues started contracting around the pillar at D1 and their fractional shortening increased until D7, reaching a plateau at 25±1%, that was maintained up to 14 days. The average stress, calculated from the compaction of the central pillar during contractions, was 1.4±0.4 mN/mm2. The cardiac constructs recapitulated expected inotropic responses to calcium and various drugs (isoproterenol, verapamil) as well as the arrhythmogenic effects of dofetilide. This versatile high-throughput assay allows multiple in situ mechanical and structural read-outs.

### Competing Interest Statement

The platform has been developed in the context of a collaborative research agreement between the public institution INSERM and 4DCell which is a SME specilaizing in medical bioengineering. Four of the co-authors (P.D.; S.R.; M.LB and R.RR) are employees of 4DCell.

A versatile high-throughput assay based on 3D ring-shaped cardiac tissues generated from human induced pluripotent stem cell derived cardiomyocytes

development-of-a-high-throughput-3d-cardiac-tissue-assay


Development of a High-Throughput 3D Cardiac Tissue Assay
