3094 Production of Engineered Cardiac Tissue for Disease Modeling

Abstract

OBJECTIVES/SPECIFIC AIMS: Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) is the leading cause of death worldwide in both men and women due to lack of cardiac regeneration after disease or damaged is caused. There are many challenges to studying CVD since native cardiomyocytes cannot be cultured in vitro. With the advancements in biomaterial and pluripotent stem cells research, scientists are now able to produce engineered cardiac tissue models in vitro that mimic the native myocardium. This study shows our methods for producing engineered cardiac tissue with potential applications in cardiac regeneration, disease modeling, and scalable production. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: In this study, human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) were combined with two different photocrosslinkable hybrid biomaterials, poly (ethylene)- glycol fibrinogen (PF) and gelatin methacrylate (GelMa), in various tissue geometries to form 3D human engineered cardiac tissues (3D-hECTs). To study tissue growth and contraction, image and video analysis was performed at specific timepoints. To analyze differentiation efficiency and cell population, flow cytometry was performed using cardiac markers. To evaluate gene expression, qPCR was performed using pluripotency and cardiac specific primers. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: Direct cardiac differentiation of encapsulated hiPSCs resulted in synchronously contracting 3D-hECTs in both biomaterials and all tissue geometries. Spontaneous contractions started on Day 7 and increased in velocity, frequency, and synchronicity over time. 3D-hECTs had high cell viability with > 70% of cells positive for cardiac markers. Engineered tissues showed appropriate temporal changes in gene expression over time with pluripotency gene expression decreasing and cardiac gene expression increasing. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF IMPACT: This study shows the potential for direct differentiation of encapsulated hiPSCs to produce physiologically relevant engineered cardiac tissues. Resulting 3D-hECTS showed features of mature myocardium with appropriate cardiomyocyte populations, mechanical motion, and gene expression. Using this platform, we are able to produce engineered cardiac tissue in a variety of biomaterials and tissue geometries to study new therapeutics, mechanism of disease, and scalable tissue culture.