Neonatal Mouse–Derived Engineered Cardiac Tissue

Rationale:Cardiomyocytes cultured in a mechanically active 3-dimensional configuration can be used for studies that correlate contractile performance to cellular physiology. Current engineered cardiac tissue (ECT) models use cells derived from either rat or chick hearts. Development of a murine ECT would provide access to many existing models of cardiac disease and open the possibility of performing targeted genetic manipulation with the ability to directly assess contractile and molecular variables. Objective:To generate, characterize, and validate mouse ECT with a physiologically relevant model of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Methods and Results:We generated mechanically integrated ECT using isolated neonatal mouse cardiac cells derived from both wild-type and myosin-binding protein C (cMyBP-C)–null mouse hearts. The murine ECTs produced consistent contractile forces that followed the Frank-Starling law and accepted physiological pacing. cMyBP-C–null ECTs showed characteristic acceleration of contractio...