Tissue Engineers Develop Heart Muscle for Transplant Therapy

Cardiac researchers have grown three-dimensional human cardiac tissue complete with blood vessels in laboratory cultures, a development that may lead to treatment of heart disease through tissue replacement therapy.

Investigators at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology (Haifa, Israel) constructed a three-dimensional cell matrix by seeding a sponge-like plastic scaffold with cardiomyocytes, endothelial cells (ECs), and embryonic fibroblasts (EmFs).

The tissue matrix was stabilized by the presence of mural cells originating from the EmFs. Blood flow was provided by endothelial capillaries, which augmented cardiomyocyte proliferation and did not hamper cardiomyocyte orientation and alignment. The presence of EmFs decreased EC death and increased EC proliferation.

Details of the work published in the January 11, 2007, issue of Circulation Research revealed that four to six days after being seeded on the scaffold, patches of the new muscle cells began to contract together, a movement that spread until the entire tissue scaffold was beating like normal heart muscle.

Senior author Dr. Shulamit Levenberg, professor of biomedical engineering at the Technion, said, "This is the first time that three-dimensional human cardiac tissue complete with blood vessels has been constructed. This may have unique applications for studies of cardiac development, function, and tissue replacement therapy.”



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Technion-Israel Institute of Technology