Related Experiment Video
Updated: Apr 7, 2026
Scanning Electron Microscopy of Macerated Tissue to Visualize the Extracellular Matrix
Published on: June 14, 2016
Quantification of decellularized human myocardial matrix: A comparison of six patients
Todd D Johnson1, Ryan C Hill2, Monika Dzieciatkowska2
1Department of Bioengineering, Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
Insights
Human cardiac extracellular matrix (ECM) from donor hearts shows significant patient variability. This finding is crucial for developing new allogeneic biomaterials and understanding myocardial composition.
Area of Science:
- Biochemistry
- Biomaterials Science
- Proteomics
Background:
- The cardiac extracellular matrix (ECM) provides structural and functional support to the myocardium.
- Understanding human cardiac ECM composition is vital for developing effective biomaterials for cardiac repair.
Purpose of the Study:
- To characterize and quantitatively analyze human cardiac ECM from six cadaveric donor hearts.
- To assess patient-to-patient variability in myocardial ECM composition.
Main Methods:
- Decellularization of human donor hearts to isolate ECM.
- Quantification of sulfated glycosaminoglycan (sGAG) content and protein analysis via PAGE.
- Quantitative proteomics using ECM-targeted QconCAT and global LC-MS/MS analysis.
Main Results:
- Significant patient-to-patient variability observed in sGAG content, PAGE, and QconCAT proteomics.
- Fibrillar collagens were the predominant proteins in the cardiac ECM.
- Difficult-to-remove cellular proteins constituted less than 1% of the total protein content.
- Global proteomics identified over 200 distinct proteins in the human cardiac ECM.
Conclusions:
- Human myocardial ECM exhibits significant inter-patient variability.
- This variability has critical implications for the development of allogeneic biomaterials.
- Findings enhance the understanding of human myocardial ECM composition for future research and applications.
Purpose:
The purpose of this study was to characterize and quantitatively analyze human cardiac extracellular matrix (ECM) isolated from six different cadaveric donor hearts.
Experimental Design:
ECM was isolated by decellularization of six human cadaveric donor hearts and characterized by quantifying sulfated glycosaminoglycan content (sGAG) and via PAGE. The protein content was then quantified using ECM-targeted Quantitative conCATamers (QconCAT) by LC-SRM analysis using 83 stable isotope labeled (SIL) peptides representing 48 different proteins. Nontargeted global analysis was also implemented using LC-MS/MS.
Results:
The sGAG content, PAGE, and QconCAT proteomics analysis showed significant variation between each of the six patient samples. The quantitative proteomics indicated that the majority of the protein content was composed of various fibrillar collagen components. Also, quantification of difficult to remove cellular proteins represented less than 1% of total protein content, which is very low for a decellularized biomaterial. Global proteomics identified over 200 distinct proteins present in the human cardiac ECM.
Conclusion And Clinical Relevance:
In conclusion, quantification and characterization of human myocardial ECM showed significant patient-to-patient variability between the six investigated patients. This is an important outcome for the development of allogeneic derived biomaterials and for increasing our understanding of human myocardial ECM composition.
