Extracellular Vesicles from Human Cardiac Fibroblasts Modulate Calcium Cycling in Human Stem Cell-Derived...

Cardiac fibroblasts regulate the development of the adult cardiomyocyte phenotype and cardiac remodeling in disease. We investigate the role that cardiac fibroblasts-secreted extracellular vesicles (EVs) have in the modulation of cardiomyocyte Ca²⁺ cycling-a fundamental mechanism in cardiomyocyte function universally altered during disease. EVs collected from cultured human cardiac ventricular fibroblasts were purified by centrifugation, ultrafiltration and size-exclusion chromatography. The presence of EVs and EV markers were identified by dot blot analysis and electron microscopy. Fibroblast-conditioned media contains liposomal particles with a characteristic EV phenotype. EV markers CD9, CD63 and CD81 were highly expressed in chromatography fractions that elute earlier (Fractions 1-15), with most soluble contaminating proteins in the later fractions collected (Fractions 16-30). Human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs) were treated with fibroblast-secreted EVs and intracellular Ca²⁺ transients were analyzed. Fibroblast-secreted EVs abbreviate the Ca²⁺ transient time to peak and time to 50% decay versus serum-free controls. Thus, EVs from human cardiac fibroblasts represent a novel mediator of human fibroblast-cardiomyocyte interaction, increasing the efficiency of hiPSC-CM Ca²⁺ handling.