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MicroBundleCompute: Automated segmentation, tracking, and analysis of subdomain deformation in cardiac microbundles
Hiba Kobeissi1,2, Javiera Jilberto3, M Çağatay Karakan1,4,5
1Department of Mechanical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA, United States of America.
Plos One
|March 26, 2024
Summary
A new computational framework, MicroBundleCompute, enables automated analysis of cardiac microbundle mechanics. This tool provides reliable, reproducible functional metrics for human induced pluripotent stem cell derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs), advancing regenerative medicine and drug discovery.
Area of Science:
- Cardiovascular Research
- Biomedical Engineering
- Stem Cell Technology
Background:
- Human induced pluripotent stem cell derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs) hold promise for disease modeling, drug discovery, and regenerative tissue engineering.
- A significant challenge is achieving mature hiPSC-CM tissues and obtaining reliable, reproducible functional metrics for cross-system comparison.
- Current methods for analyzing cardiac microbundle contraction do not fully utilize available data, such as full-field tissue displacements and strains.
Purpose of the Study:
- To introduce MicroBundleCompute, a novel computational framework for the automatic quantification of morphology-based mechanical metrics from cardiac microbundle contraction movies.
- To provide a tool that enables reliable and reproducible computation of functional metrics for hiPSC-CMs, suitable for direct cross-system comparison.
- To disseminate MicroBundleCompute as an open-source tool to enhance accessibility for automated quantitative analysis in the research community.
Main Methods:
- Development of a computational framework incorporating automatic tissue segmentation, tracking, and analysis of beating cardiac microbundles from brightfield and phase contrast movies.
- Implementation of user-friendly features including minimal user intervention and inexpensive computational cost.
- Extensive validation studies to demonstrate the framework's reliability and accuracy.
Main Results:
- MicroBundleCompute successfully automates the quantification of morphology-based mechanical metrics from cardiac microbundle movies.
- The framework enables exploration of heterogeneous tissue deformations and strains as novel functional metrics.
- Validation studies confirm the tool's capability for reliable and reproducible analysis.
Conclusions:
- MicroBundleCompute offers a significant advancement in the quantitative analysis of hiPSC-CM functional behavior.
- The framework addresses the need for reliable cross-system comparison of hiPSC-CM maturity and function.
- Dissemination as an open-source tool will accelerate progress in cardiac research, drug discovery, and regenerative medicine.
