Industrialization of three-dimensional hiPSC-cardiac microtissues for high-throughput cardiac safety and drug discovery screening

Abstract

Current cardiac cell models for drug screening often face a trade-off between cellular maturity and achieving high throughput. While three-dimensional human induced pluripotent stem cell-based heart models typically exhibit more adult-like features, their application is hindered by the need for large cell numbers or complex equipment. Here, we developed cost-effective methods to scale up production of three-dimensional cardiac microtissues (cMTs) containing three cardiac cell types, and assess calcium transients and action potential metrics for high-throughput screening (HTS). Automating the procedure revealed reproducible drug responsiveness and predictive accuracy in a reference compound screen. Furthermore, an arrhythmic phenotype was reliably triggered in cMTs containing cardiomyocytes with a RYR2 mutation. A screen of FDA-approved drugs identified 17 drugs that rescued the arrhythmic phenotype. Our findings underscore the scalability of cMTs and their utility in disease modelling and HTS. The advanced "technology-readiness-level" of cMTs supports their regulatory uptake and acceptance within the pharmaceutical industry.