Engineering cardiospheres from human pluripotent stem cells

There has been limited progress toward the development of in vitro cardiac tissue models and cellular cardiac therapies due to the lack of an easily obtainable and expandable cell source. Human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) represent a potentially unlimited source of cardiomyocytes for use in regenerative cardiac therapies as well as for the study of cardiovascular development, disease, and tissue homeostasis. An enhanced understanding of the interactions between cardiomyocytes and their surrounding microenvironment is required in order to generate appropriate in vitro models of human cardiac development and disease. In this study, we model cardiac microenvironments by generating 3D cardiospheres of hPSC-derived cardiomyocytes and control spheroid formation conditions to modulate both cardiomyocyte phenotype and physiological function.