Skip to main content
Dryad

Induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocyte in vitro models: tissue fabrication protocols, assessment methods, and quantitative maturation metrics for benchmarking progress

Data files

Jul 19, 2024 version files 192.54 KB

Abstract

The advent of human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) and techniques to differentiate cardiomyocytes from them has opened a viable path to creating in vitro models of normal and diseased hearts, accelerating more predictive drug screening and therapeutic strategies for cardiac pathologies. Currently, hiPSC-derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs) are more similar to fetal than adult cardiomyocytes, leading many in the field to explore approaches to enhance cell and tissue maturation. There are over 2,000 studies utilizing hiPSC-CMs in models composed of various combinations of cell and extracellular matrix components, using a plethora of differentiation protocols, culture formats, and methods for quantifying cardiomyocyte function. To assess the current state of this rapidly growing area, we systematically analyzed 300 studies using hiPSC-CM models for their selection of hiPSC lines, hiPSC-CM differentiation protocols, types of in vitro models, maturation techniques, and metrics used to assess cardiomyocyte functionality and maturity. Here, we provide the data compiled from our analysis of these papers so others in the field can utilize it to inform their research. Based on this analysis, we highlight the diversity of, and current trends in, in vitro model designs and highlight the most common and promising practices for functional assessments. We further analyzed outputs spanning structural maturity, contractile function, electrophysiology, and gene expression and noted field-wide improvements over time. Finally, we observe that a persistent lack of coordination amongst investigators is limiting the field’s ability to benchmark and advance hiPSC-CM function against previous studies. We discuss opportunities to collectively pursue the common goal of hiPSC-CM model development, maturation, and assessment that we believe are critical to driving the entire community forward in engineering mature cardiac tissue.