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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Bioeng. Biotechnol.
Sec. Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2024.1403044
This article is part of the Research Topic Advanced Therapies for Cardiac Regeneration, Volume II View all 6 articles

Development of a high-speed imaging system for real time evaluation and monitoring of cardiac engineered tissues

Provisionally accepted
Antoine Belzil Antoine Belzil 1Roselle Gélinas Roselle Gélinas 2Philippe Comtois Philippe Comtois 3*
  • 1 Montreal University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
  • 2 Institut de Cardiologie de Montréal, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Quebec, Canada
  • 3 University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Stem cell derived cardiac monolayers have high potential for tissue regeneration, in vitro drug testing and disease modeling. However, current differentiation protocols are still sub-optimal, resulting in cultures with variable yields and properties. We propose a high-speed lenseless imaging system, integrated with an electrical stimulation unit, to optimize the generation of these cultures. This tool relies on the variations of cellular patterns, during contraction, measured by digital imaging. The imaging system can monitor cardiac cell sheet function and structure, providing the necessary tools to quickly evaluate engineered monolayer. It can record high speed videos and capture high resolution images, from which tissue spatial organization and contractile characteristics can be obtained. Validation of the system was performed using cardiomyocytes derived from human induced pluripotent stem cell and neonatal rat cardiomyocytes. The imaging system allows the observation, acquisition and analysis of important data relating to contractile activity development of cardiac cells, making it a promising tool for optimization in cardiac tissue engineering.

    Keywords: functional imaging, CMOS, hiPSC cardiomyocyte, Electrical stimulation (ES), Monitoring

    Received: 18 Mar 2024; Accepted: 24 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Belzil, Gélinas and Comtois. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Philippe Comtois, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.