Sensors in heart-on-a-chip: A review on recent progress

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Cardiovascular Research
• Drug Discovery

Background:

• Drug-induced cardiotoxicity poses significant challenges in drug discovery.
• Current in vivo and in vitro screening methods have limitations, including inter-species differences and high costs.
• There is a need for efficient and accurate methods to assess cardiac cell behavior in vitro.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review key sensing methods for heart-on-a-chip platforms.
• To discuss optical and electrical sensing techniques for monitoring cardiomyocyte contractility.
• To explore sensors for measuring electrophysiological potentials in cardiac cells.

Main Methods:

• Review of optical sensing techniques (calcium imaging, fluorescent, laser-based, colorimetric).
• Review of electrical sensing techniques (impedance, strain, crack sensing).
• Discussion of various sensor compositions (electrodes, soft electronics, nanomaterial-based transistors).

Main Results:

• Optical and electrical sensors effectively record cardiomyocyte contractility.
• Diverse sensor designs enable monitoring of extracellular and intracellular electrophysiological potentials.
• Heart-on-a-chip technology integrates advanced materials and bioelectronic fabrication.

Conclusions:

• Heart-on-a-chip platforms with advanced sensing offer a promising approach for efficient and accurate cardiotoxicity screening.
• These systems can overcome limitations of traditional drug testing methods.
• Future development requires addressing current technological challenges.