Oxygen consumption of human heart cells in monolayer culture

Tissue engineering in cardiovascular regenerative therapy requires the development of an efficient oxygen supply system for cell cultures. However, there are few studies which have examined human cardiomyocytes in terms of oxygen consumption and metabolism in culture. We developed an oxygen measurement system equipped with an oxygen microelectrode sensor and estimated the oxygen consumption rates (OCRs) by using the oxygen concentration profiles in culture medium. The heart is largely made up of cardiomyocytes, cardiac fibroblasts, and cardiac endothelial cells. Therefore, we measured the oxygen consumption of human induced pluripotent stem cell derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs), cardiac fibroblasts, human cardiac microvascular endothelial cell and aortic smooth muscle cells. Then we made correlations with their metabolisms. In hiPSC-CMs, the value of the OCR was 0.71±0.38pmol/h/cell, whereas the glucose consumption rate and lactate production rate were 0.77±0.32pmol/h/cell and 1.61±0.70pmol/h/cell, respectively. These values differed significantly from those of the other cells in human heart. The metabolism of the cells that constitute human heart showed the molar ratio of lactate production to glucose consumption (L/G ratio) that ranged between 1.97 and 2.2. Although the energy metabolism in adult heart in vivo is reported to be aerobic, our data demonstrated a dominance of anaerobic glycolysis in an in vitro environment. With our measuring system, we clearly showed the differences in the metabolism of cells between in vivo and in vitro monolayer culture. Our results regarding cell OCRs and metabolism may be useful for future tissue engineering of human heart.