Bioinspired optical and electrical dual-responsive heart-on-a-chip for hormone testing

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Materials Science
• Cardiovascular Research

Background:

• Heart-on-chips are crucial for cardiac research and drug development, with ongoing efforts to enhance their visual capabilities and biomimicry.
• Current limitations exist in real-time monitoring of cardiomyocyte mechanics and toxicity assessments.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a novel optical and electrical dual-responsive heart-on-a-chip.
• To utilize MXene structural color hydrogels for visual reporting of cardiomyocyte mechanics.
• To evaluate its application in hormone toxicity testing.

Main Methods:

• Fabrication of inverse opal nanostructure hydrogels by replicating MXene-decorated colloidal photonic crystal templates.
• Incorporation of MXene into hydrogels to enhance structural color and electroconductivity.
• Culturing cardiomyocytes on the dual-responsive hydrogel for synchronous deformation and optical signal generation.

Main Results:

• The MXene-hybrid hydrogels exhibited enhanced structural color saturation and excellent electroconductivity.
• The heart-on-a-chip demonstrated synchronous deformation with cardiomyocyte beating, generating visual shifts in structural color.
• The platform successfully performed hormone toxicity testing, showing practical value.

Conclusions:

• The optical and electrical dual-responsive structural color MXene hydrogels offer a novel approach for heart-on-a-chip development.
• This technology enables visual self-reporting of cardiomyocyte mechanics, facilitating toxicity evaluation.
• The proposed heart-on-a-chip holds significant potential for drug screening and biological research.