Traction force microscopy of engineered cardiac tissues.

摘要: Cardiac tissue development and pathology have been shown to depend sensitively on microenvironmental mechanical factors, such as extracellular matrix stiffness, in both vivo vitro systems. We present a novel quantitative approach assess cardiac structure function by extending the classical traction force microscopy technique tissue-level preparations. Using this system, we investigated relationship between contractile proficiency metabolism neonate rat ventricular myocytes (NRVM) cultured gels with stiffness mimicking soft immature (1 kPa), normal healthy (13 stiff diseased (90 kPa) microenvironments. found that tissues engineered softest generated least amount of stress had smallest work output. Conversely, cardiomyocytes healthy- disease-mimicking significantly higher stresses, maximal measured NRVM stiffness. Interestingly, although exhibited poor generation production, their basal metabolic respiration rate was more elevated than other groups, suggesting highly ineffective coupling energy production Our platform can thus be utilized quantitatively mechanotransduction pathways initiate structural functional remodeling response substrate