Engineering highly-aligned three-dimensional (3D) cardiac constructs for enhanced myocardial infarction repair

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Tissue Engineering
• Regenerative Medicine

Background:

• Native myocardium requires organized cellular and vascular structures for function.
• Engineering functional cardiac tissue is crucial for treating myocardial infarction.
• Mimicking native cardiac architecture is a key challenge in tissue engineering.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a novel strategy for engineering highly-aligned 3D cardiac constructs.
• To investigate the potential of co-culturing cardiomyocytes and rat aortic endothelial cells (RAECs) within electrohydrodynamic-printed microfibrous architectures.
• To assess the efficacy of these engineered constructs in repairing infarcted myocardium in vivo.

Main Methods:

• Co-culturing cardiomyocytes and RAECs within fibrin hydrogels.
• Utilizing electrohydrodynamic printing to create microfibrous scaffolds.
• Reorganization of fibrin to form multidirectionally aligned 3D cardiac bands.
• In vivo assessment of cardiac construct performance in a myocardial infarction model.

Main Results:

• Engineered 3D cardiac constructs exhibited enhanced cardiomyocyte-specific protein expression and synchronous contraction.
• Addition of RAECs increased cardiac band width and beating frequency.
• In vivo implantation reduced infracted area, enhanced neovascularization, and promoted functional myocardial repair.

Conclusions:

• The proposed strategy successfully engineers 3D cardiac constructs with tissue-specific cellular orientations.
• These constructs demonstrate significant potential for the functional repair of infarcted myocardium.
• This approach offers a promising avenue for regenerative medicine applications in cardiac repair.