Recent progress of iPSC technology in cardiac diseases

Abstract

It has been nearly 15 years since the discovery of human-induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). During this time, differentiation methods to targeted cells have dramatically improved, and many types of cells in the human body can be currently generated at high efficiency. In the cardiovascular field, the ability to generate human cardiomyocytes in vitro with the same genetic background as patients has provided a great opportunity to investigate human cardiovascular diseases at the cellular level to clarify the molecular mechanisms underlying the diseases and discover potential therapeutics. Additionally, iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes have provided a powerful platform to study drug-induced cardiotoxicity and identify patients at high risk for the cardiotoxicity; thus, accelerating personalized precision medicine. Moreover, iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes can be sources for cardiac cell therapy. Here, we review these achievements and discuss potential improvements for the future application of iPSC technology in cardiovascular diseases.

Keywords: Cardiomyocyte; Differentiation into subtypes; Disease modeling; Induced pluripotent stem cells; Maturation.

Fig. 1

Generation of iPSC cardiomyocytes and their application to cardiovascular diseases

Fig. 2

Subtype differentiation of iPSCs and platforms to model diseases

Fig. 3

In vitro maturation of iPSC cardiomyocytes by mimicking the postnatal maturation process in vivo