Engineered Cardiac Tissues for in vitro Assessment of Contractile Function and Repair Mechanisms

For efficiently assessing the potential for grafted cells to repair infarcted myocardium, a simplified surrogate heart muscle system would offer numerous advantages. Using neonatal rat cardiac myocytes in a collagen matrix, we created thin cylindrical engineered cardiac tissues (ECTs) that exhibit essential aspects of physiologic cardiac muscle function. Furthermore, a novel cryo-injured ECT model of myocardial infarction offers the potential for the longitudinal study of mechanisms of cell-based cardiac repair in vitro