Abstract 16426: Vasculature-Designed 3-Dimensional Artificial Cardiac Tissue Derived From Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells: An Engineered Cardiac Graft to Enhance Vascular Network Formation With the Scarred Myocardium in Rat

Introduction: While transplantation of artificial cardiac tissue is a promising strategy to treat advanced chronic myocardial infarction (MI) heart, ischemia in the graft is a concern as a limiting factor of its therapeutic potential. We recently developed a new technology by which human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiac myocytes (iPSC-CMs) formed 3-dimensional (D) artificial cardiac tissue including microvascular network in vitro. We hypothesized that transplanted artificial cardiac tissue may be integrated into the MI heart, leading to functional recovery. Methods: hiPSC-CMs, endothelial cells and cardiac fibroblasts of human origin were coated with fibronectin and gelatin, and then incubated in cell culture insert to reconstruct vascularized 3D cardiac tissue in vitro, which was epicardially transplanted into the scarred myocardium of nude rat that was subjected to left coronary artery ligation X weeks prior to the treatment, or sham operation was performed (n=10 each). Results: The 3D-card...