On-chip constructive cell-Network study (I): Contribution of cardiac fibroblasts to cardiomyocyte beating synchronization and community effect

Journal of Nanobiotechnology

Research

Tomoyuki Kaneko¹  Fumimasa Nomura¹  Kenji Yasuda¹ 

[1] Department of Biomedical Information, Division of Biosystems, Institute of Biomaterials and Bioengineering, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Tokyo, 2-3-10 Kanda-Surugadai, 101-0062, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan;

关键词: Cardiac Fibroblast;    Community Effect;    Electrical Coupling;    Interbeat Interval;    Beating Cardiomyocytes;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1477-3155-9-21

 received in 2010-07-20, accepted in 2011-05-23,  发布年份 2011

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundsTo clarify the role of cardiac fibroblasts in beating synchronization, we have made simple lined-up cardiomyocyte-fibroblast network model in an on-chip single-cell-based cultivation system.ResultsThe synchronization phenomenon of two cardiomyocyte networks connected by fibroblasts showed (1) propagation velocity of electrophysiological signals decreased a magnitude depending on the increasing number of fibroblasts, not the lengths of fibroblasts; (2) fluctuation of interbeat intervals of the synchronized two cardiomyocyte network connected by fibroblasts did not always decreased, and was opposite from homogeneous cardiomyocyte networks; and (3) the synchronized cardiomyocytes connected by fibroblasts sometimes loses their synchronized condition and recovered to synchronized condition, in which the length of asynchronized period was shorter less than 30 beats and was independent to their cultivation time, whereas the length of synchronized period increased according to cultivation time.ConclusionsThe results indicated that fibroblasts can connect cardiomyocytes electrically but do not significantly enhance and contribute to beating interval stability and synchronization. This might also mean that an increase in the number of fibroblasts in heart tissue reduces the cardiomyocyte 'community effect', which enhances synchronization and stability of their beating rhythms.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Kaneko et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2011. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.