BioCentury
ARTICLE | Distillery Techniques

Techniques: A 3D model of cardiac development for toxicity screening

September 3, 2015 7:00 AM UTC

A 3D model of cardiac development could be used to study the gestational toxicity of therapeutic agents. In human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell cultures grown in isolated microwells, activation of the Wnt pathway with a glycogen dependent kinase 3 (GSK3) inhibitor induced spatially organized differentiation that resulted in a beating cardiac microchamber. In the differentiating microchambers, thalidomide - a known inducer of heart development defects - decreased cardiac microchamber size, beat frequency and contractility compared with no treatment. Next steps could include using the cardiac microchambers to screen compounds for developmental toxicity. ...