Montreal researchers create beating “mini-heart” from a patient’s blood cells
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Researchers in Montreal have developed a three-dimensional beating “heart-on-a-chip” using blood cells from a patient with dilated cardiomyopathy, creating a laboratory model that reproduces key features of the disease and could eventually help scientists study how individual patients respond to different treatments.
The team reprogrammed the patient’s blood cells into induced pluripotent stem cells, which can develop into different types of cells, before turning them into heart muscle cells. These cells were then used to build three-dimensional cardiac tissue on a small chip that beats and contracts on its own.
Researchers compared the patient-derived model with cardiac tissue created from cells from a healthy participant. They found measurable differences in tissue structure, contraction strength, beating patterns, calcium activity and molecular characteristics, while the patient-derived tissue showed irregular rhythms consistent with important features of dilated cardiomyopathy.
The model also incorporates tiny fluorescent beads inside the engineered tissue, allowing researchers to track how different areas move during each contraction. When exposed to norepinephrine, a substance that increases the heart’s rate and force of contraction, the tissue responded to the chemical stimulation, providing another way to assess its function.
Dilated cardiomyopathy is a condition in which the heart becomes enlarged and weakened, reducing its ability to pump blood effectively and potentially leading to heart failure and abnormal heart rhythms. The study notes that the disease carries about a 50 per cent risk of progressing to heart failure within five years and is a leading cause of heart transplantation.
The significance of the technology lies in its ability to recreate aspects of an individual patient’s heart disease outside the body. Researchers say patient-specific models could eventually help evaluate potential treatments earlier and provide more personalized information about how heart tissue responds to therapies. The team cautions, however, that the work remains a proof of concept and must now be tested using samples from a much larger and more diverse group of patients.
The study was published in Advanced Healthcare Materials and involved researchers from several Montreal institutions, including McGill University, Université de Montréal, the CHU Sainte-Justine Research Centre and Polytechnique Montréal.
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Tahani Elghazaly5567 Posts
