Electrically conductive materials for in vitro cardiac microtissue engineering

Cardiac tissue engineering, a fairly new concept in cardiovascular research, could substantially improve our success in both in vitro modeling of cardiac microtissue and in vivo cardiac regenerative medicine. To a large extent, this success was attributed to mechanical as well as electrical properties of cardiac-designated biomaterials which inherit the fundamental characteristics of a native myocardial extracellular matrix. Large efforts have been made toward designation and construction of these scaffolds which paved the way for more natural-like biomaterials. As an important characteristic, electrical conductivity has grabbed special attention, thus opening up a whole new area of research to achieve the best biomaterial. Electroconductive scaffolds have benefitted from both incorporation of conductive particles in polymeric matrix and fabrication of organic conductive polymers which supported cardiac tissue engineering. However, conductive scaffolds have not yet achieved full success and more work is required to obtain the optimal conductivity with highest similarity to the native heart for in vitro cardiac microtissue engineering.