The researchers used stem cells to create a small beating heart, saying the technology could revolutionize medicine. This new heart will be used for drug testing, giving researchers an opportunity to gain insight into the heart's developmental processes. This small heart has a micro-chamber that "jumps" like a full-size heart.
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, worked closely with scientists at the Gladstone Institute in San Francisco to develop the artificial heart. “Cultivating a template for beating heart tissue produces a system that can be used as a model for early heart development and a drug screening tool to make pregnancy safer,†they said.
Kevin Healy, a professor of bioengineering at the University of California, Berkeley, said: "We believe this is the first in vitro example of human ventricular development. This technique may help us quickly screen for drugs that may cause birth defects. Instruct us to identify which drugs are dangerous to pregnant women."
Dr. Bruce Conklin, a senior fellow at the Healy and Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Research and a professor of medical genetics, cell and molecular pharmacology at the University of California, San Francisco, conducted the study. The study was published in the journal Nature Communications. These researchers use biochemical and biophysical cues to suggest stem cell differentiation and self-organization into micro-level heart tissue such as micro-chambers.
To test the possibility of using the system as a drug screening tool, they exposed these differentiated cells to thalidomide. Thalidomide is a drug that produces serious birth defects. These researchers found that at normal therapeutic doses, thalidomide caused abnormal development of the microchamber, causing many problems, such as micro-chambers and muscle contractions. In addition, the heart rate of the microchamber exposed to it is reduced compared to heart tissue that is not exposed to thalidomide.
Conklin said: "Every year, 280,000 pregnant women are exposed to drugs that may pose a risk to the fetus. The most frequently reported birth defects are related to the heart. The possibility of heart defects is of the utmost concern because it determines the safety of drugs during pregnancy." The researchers point out that although this study focuses on heart tissue, the possibility of using this technique to study the development of other organs is also high.
“Our research focuses on early heart development, but the basic principles of human pluripotent stem cell development patterns and subsequent cell differentiation are likely to produce a large number of different tissues, providing us with an understanding of embryogenesis and histomorphogenesis,†said Healy. Important clues."
Healy and other researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, for the first time announced a system that beats human heart cells, which may be used to screen for drug toxicity. Less than four months later, Healy received this landmark major discovery. In this new study, scientists first performed stem cell genetic recombination with adult skin tissue, mimicked the formation of human tissue, and then cultured a chamber with beating human heart cells.
Conklin's lab in Glaston provided these human-induced pluripotent stem cells for this study. The lab is an independent, non-profit life sciences research organization with a partnership with the University of California, San Francisco.
These researchers placed undifferentiated stem cells on a surface with a circular pattern. This surface helps to physically regulate cell differentiation and growth. At the end of the two weeks, these cells, which begin in a two-dimensional surface environment, present a 3D structure in the form of a pulsating microchamber.
In addition, these cells self-organize. It depends on whether they are placed around the surface or in the center. Compared to cells in the center of the surface, marginal cells experience greater mechanical stress and tension, more like fibroblasts that form connective tissue collagen. In contrast, central cells develop into cardiomyocytes.
"The spatial differentiation naturally occurs in biology, but we demonstrate this process in vitro," said the lead author of the study, said Zhen Ma, a postdoctoral fellow in bioengineering at the University of California at Berkeley. Limited geometric patterns provide biochemical and biophysical clues to guide cardiac differentiation and the formation of a beating microchamber."
Scientists conducting the new study say that models that make early heart development are difficult to perform on culture dishes and tissue culture plates. This field of study is usually related to the anatomy of animals at different stages of development, with the aim of clarifying the formation of organs and the causes of errors in development.
Healy pointed out: "We used human versatile stem cells derived from patients in our research, which means a huge change in the field of research. Previous studies on cardiac micro-chambers mainly used mouse cardiomyocytes. But for human diseases, This is a flawed model."
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