Summary
Published in PLOS ONE (2018), this peer-reviewed study used 3D Petri Dish® micro-molds to form scaffold-free 3D microtissues. Full citation: Kim, Tae Yun, et al. Directed fusion of cardiac spheroids into larger heterocellular microtissues enables investigation of cardiac action potential propagation via cardiac fibroblasts
Directed fusion of cardiac spheroids into larger heterocellular microtissues enables investigation of cardiac action potential propagation via cardiac fibroblasts
Research Overview
The myocardium is built from distinct but intermingled cell types, which makes cardiac tissue a natural target for bottom-up assembly from spheroid building blocks. This study generated scaffold-free 3D cardiac microtissue spheroids of cardiac myocytes, cardiac fibroblasts, or both, then used them as building blocks to form larger microtissues with deliberately different spatial distributions of the two cell types.
By characterizing how homotypic and heterotypic spheroids fuse, the work shows that spheroid composition and arrangement can be used to engineer larger cardiac tissues with controlled heterogeneity — closer to the organization of native myocardium.
Key Discoveries
- Scaffold-free cardiac spheroids of myocytes and/or fibroblasts used as tissue building blocks
- Directed fusion produced larger microtissues with controlled spatial cell distributions
- Fusion characterized for both homotypic and heterotypic spheroid combinations
