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. 2019 Mar 14;3(1):010901.
doi: 10.1063/1.5070106. eCollection 2019 Mar.

Bioengineering adult human heart tissue: How close are we?

Richard J Mills  1 , James E Hudson  1
Affiliations

Bioengineering adult human heart tissue: How close are we?

Richard J Mills et al. APL Bioeng. .

Abstract

Human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) have extensive applications in fundamental biology, regenerative medicine, disease modelling, and drug discovery/toxicology. Whilst large numbers of cardiomyocytes can be generated from hPSCs, extensive characterization has revealed that they have immature cardiac properties. This has raised potential concerns over their usefulness for many applications and has led to the pursuit of driving maturation of hPSC-cardiomyocytes. Currently, the best approach for driving maturity is the use of tissue engineering to generate highly functional three-dimensional heart tissue. Although we have made significant progress in this area, we have still not generated heart tissue that fully recapitulates all the properties of an adult heart. Deciphering the processes driving cardiomyocyte maturation will be instrumental in uncovering the mechanisms that govern optimal heart function and identifying new therapeutic targets for heart disease.

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Figures

FIG. 1.
FIG. 1.
Differences in characteristics of mouse versus human cardiomyocytes.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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