Tailoring Mathematical Models to Stem-Cell Derived Cardiomyocyte Lines Can Improve Predictions of Drug-Induced Changes to Their Electrophysiology (original) (raw)
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Scientific Reports, 2018
While cardiomyocytes differentiated from human induced pluripotent stems cells (hiPSCs) hold great promise for drug screening, the electrophysiological properties of these cells can be variable and immature, producing results that are significantly different from their human adult counterparts. Here, we describe a computational framework to address this limitation, and show how in silico methods, applied to measurements on immature cardiomyocytes, can be used to both identify drug action and to predict its effect in mature cells. Our synthetic and experimental results indicate that optically obtained waveforms of voltage and calcium from microphysiological systems can be inverted into information on drug ion channel blockage, and then, through assuming functional invariance of proteins during maturation, this data can be used to predict drug induced changes in mature ventricular cells. Together, this pipeline of measurements and computational analysis could significantly improve the ability of hiPSC derived cardiomycocytes to predict dangerous drug side effects.
Annals of Biomedical Engineering, 2013
The clear importance of human induced pluripotent stem cell derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs) as an in-vitro model highlights the relevance of studying these cells and their function also in-silico. Moreover, the phenotypical differences between the hiPSC-CM and adult myocyte action potentials (APs) call for understanding of how hiPSC-CMs are maturing towards adult myocytes. Using recently published experimental data, we developed two computational models of the hiPSC-CM AP, distinguishing between the ventricular-like and atrial-like phenotypes, emerging during the differentiation process of hiPSC-CMs. Also, we used the computational approach to quantitatively assess the role of ionic mechanisms which are likely responsible for the not completely mature phenotype of hiPSC-CMs. Our models reproduce the typical hiPSC-CM ventricular-like and atriallike spontaneous APs and the response to prototypical current blockers, namely tetrodotoxine, nifedipine, E4041 and 3R4S-Chromanol 293B. Moreover, simulations using our ventricular-like model suggest that the interplay of immature I Na , I f and I K1 currents has a fundamental role in the hiPSC-CM spontaneous beating whereas a negative shift in I CaL activation causes the observed long lasting AP. In conclusion, this work provides two novel tools useful in investigating the electrophysiological features of hiPSC-CMs, whose importance is growing fast as in-vitro models for pharmacological studies.
Mathematical modelling of the action potential of human embryonic stem cell derived cardiomyocytes
BioMedical Engineering OnLine, 2012
Background: Human embryonic stem cell derived cardiomyocytes (hESC-CMs) hold high potential for basic and applied cardiovascular research. The development of a reliable simulation platform able to mimic the functional properties of hESC-CMs would be of considerable value to perform preliminary test complementing in vitro experimentations. Methods: We developed the first computational model of hESC-CM action potential by integrating our original electrophysiological recordings of transient-outward, funny, and sodium-calcium exchanger currents and data derived from literature on sodium, calcium and potassium currents in hESC-CMs.
British Journal of Pharmacology
Two new technologies hold the promise to revolutionize cardiac safety and drug development: in vitro experiments on human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs) and in silico human adult ventricular cardiomyocyte (hAdultV-CM) models. Their combination was recently proposed as a potential replacement for the present hERG-based QT study in safety pharmacology assessment. Here, we systematically compare in silico the effects of selective ionic current block on hiPSC-CM and hAdultV-CM action potentials (APs), to identify similarities/differences and to illustrate the potential of computational models as supportive tools for evaluating new in vitro technologies.
2019
Cardiomyocytes derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells hold great potential for drug screening applications. However, their usefulness is limited by the relative immaturity of cells’ electro-physiological properties as compared to native cardiomyocytes in the adult human heart. In this work, we extend and improve on methodology to address this limitation, building on previously introduced computational procedures which predict drug effects for mature cells based on changes in optical measurements of action potentials and Ca2+transients made in stem cell derived cardiac microtissues. This methodology quantifies ion channel changes through the inversion of data into a mathematical model, and maps this response to a mature phenotype through the assumption of functional invariance of fundamental intracellular and membrane channels during maturation.Here we utilize an updated action potential model to represent both immature and mature cells, apply an IC50-based model of dose-d...
2010
Human embryonic stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (hES-CMs) represent a promising tool for cell therapy and drug screening. We developed a hES-CM mathematical model based on data acquired with electrophysiological and RT-PCR techniques. Coupling with modelled fibroblasts was assessed too. hES-CM model reproduced satisfactorily most of the action potential (AP) features. Coupling with fibroblasts shows an increment of slope of diastolic depolarization and beating frequency and reduction of the AP peak. These results suggest that our novel mathematical model can serve as a predictive approach to interpret and refine in-vitro experiments on hES-CMs.
Cell-Specific Cardiac Electrophysiology Models
PLOS Computational Biology, 2015
The traditional cardiac model-building paradigm involves constructing a composite model using data collected from many cells. Equations are derived for each relevant cellular component (e.g., ion channel, exchanger) independently. After the equations for all components are combined to form the composite model, a subset of parameters is tuned, often arbitrarily and by hand, until the model output matches a target objective, such as an action potential. Unfortunately, such models often fail to accurately simulate behavior that is dynamically dissimilar (e.g., arrhythmia) to the simple target objective to which the model was fit. In this study, we develop a new approach in which data are collected via a series of complex electrophysiology protocols from single cardiac myocytes and then used to tune model parameters via a parallel fitting method known as a genetic algorithm (GA). The dynamical complexity of the electrophysiological data, which can only be fit by an automated method such as a GA, leads to more accurately parameterized models that can simulate rich cardiac dynamics. The feasibility of the method is first validated computationally, after which it is used to develop models of isolated guinea pig ventricular myocytes that simulate the electrophysiological dynamics significantly better than does a standard guinea pig model. In addition to improving model fidelity generally, this approach can be used to generate a cellspecific model. By so doing, the approach may be useful in applications ranging from studying the implications of cell-to-cell variability to the prediction of intersubject differences in response to pharmacological treatment.
Computing in Cardiology (CinC), 2012, 2022
Cardiomyocytes derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSC-CMs) are a virtually endless source of human cardiomyocytes, considerably used in vitro models to test drug toxicity. These cells express the major cardiac markers and ion channels, but they also result in a mix of incompletely mature cardiac cells that can be classified as atrial-like and ventricular-like cardiomyocytes. One of the most popular manipulations used to push towards more adult cardiac phenotypes is the dynamic clamp technique, based on virtual inward - rectifier potassium current (IK1) injection. In this exploratory in silico study, six different IK1 expressions have been virtually analyzed to classify hiPSC -CM phenotypes. Starting from the resulting action potential morphologies, we defined a mathematical criterion to estimate the efficacy of the injected IK1 current in terms of the threshold percentage of the current density required to obtain an hiPSC -CM physiological response. It was found that atrial IK1 formulations are more reliable than ventricular ones, with the Koivumäki IK1 formulation being the most appropriate since it requires the minimal current density to be injected.
Stem Cells and Development, 2016
Automated planar patch clamp systems are widely used in drug evaluation studies because of their ability to provide accurate, reliable, and reproducible data in a high-throughput manner. Typically, CHO and HEK tumorigenic cell lines overexpressing single ion channels are used since they can be harvested as high-density, homogenous, single-cell suspensions. While human pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (hPSC-CMs) are physiologically more relevant, these cells are fragile, have complex culture requirements, are inherently heterogeneous, and are expensive to produce, which has restricted their use on automated patch clamp (APC) devices. Here, we used high efficiency differentiation protocols to produce cardiomyocytes from six different hPSC lines for analysis on the Patchliner (Nanion Technologies GmbH) APC platform. We developed a twostep cell preparation protocol that yielded cell catch rates and whole-cell breakthroughs of *80%, with *40% of these cells allowing electrical activity to be recorded. The protocol permitted formation of long-lasting (>15 min), high quality seals (>2 GO) in both voltage-and current-clamp modes. This enabled density of sodium, calcium, and potassium currents to be evaluated, along with dose-response curves to their respective channel inhibitors, tetrodotoxin, nifedipine, and E-4031. Thus, we show the feasibility of using the Patchliner platform for automated evaluation of the electrophysiology and pharmacology of hPSC-CMs, which will enable considerable increase in throughput for reliable and efficient drug evaluation.
Frontiers in Physiology
Human pluripotent stem cells (PSC) have been used for disease modelling, after differentiation into the desired cell type. Electrophysiologic properties of cardiomyocytes derived from pluripotent stem cells are extensively used to model cardiac arrhythmias, in cardiomyopathies and channelopathies. This requires strict control of the multiple variables that can influence the electrical properties of these cells. In this article, we report the action potential variability of 780 cardiomyocytes derived from pluripotent stem cells obtained from six healthy donors. We analyze the overall distribution of action potential (AP) data, the distribution of action potential data per cell line, per differentiation protocol and batch. This analysis indicates that even using the same cell line and differentiation protocol, the differentiation batch still affects the results. This variability has important implications in modeling arrhythmias and imputing pathogenicity to variants encountered in pa...