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Background: Human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs) are under preclinical investigation as a cell-based therapy for heart failure post-myocardial infarction. In a previous study, tissue-engineered cardiac grafts were found to improve hosts' cardiac electrical and mechanical functions. However, the durability of effect, immune response, and in vitro properties of the tissue graft remained uncharacterized. This present study is aimed at confirming the graft therapeutic efficacy in an immune-competent chronic heart failure (CHF) model and providing evaluation of the in vitro properties of the tissue graft., Methods: hiPSC-CMs and human dermal fibroblasts were cultured into a synthetic bioabsorbable scaffold. The engineered grafts underwent epicardial implantation in infarcted immune-competent male Sprague-Dawley rats. Plasma samples were collected throughout the study to quantify antibody titers. At the study endpoint, all cohorts underwent echocardiographic, hemodynamic, electrophysiologic, and histopathologic assessments., Results: The epicardially placed tissue graft therapy improved ( p < 0.05) in vivo and ex vivo cardiac function compared to the untreated CHF cohort. Total IgM and IgG increased for both the untreated and graft-treated CHF cohorts. An immune response to the grafts was detected after seven days in graft-treated CHF rats only. In vitro , engineered grafts exhibited responsiveness to beta-adrenergic receptor agonism/antagonism and SERCA inhibition and elicited complex molecular profiles., Conclusions: This hiPSC-CM-derived cardiac graft improved systolic and diastolic cardiac function in immune-competent CHF rats. The improvements were detectable at seven weeks post-graft implantation despite an antibody response beginning at week one and peaking at week three. This suggests that non-integrating cell-based therapy delivered by a bioengineered tissue graft for ischemic cardiomyopathy is a viable treatment option., Competing Interests: The work outlined in this report was the basis for forming the commercial entity Avery Therapeutics, Inc. Drs. Goldman, Koevary, Lancaster, and Ms. Sherry Daugherty have disclosed a financial interest in Avery Therapeutics to the University of Arizona. In addition, the University of Arizona has a financial interest in Avery Therapeutics. These interests have been reviewed and are being managed by the University of Arizona in accordance with its policies on outside interests. All other authors have no relevant conflicts to disclose., (Copyright © 2021 Ikeotunye Royal Chinyere et al.)

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Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is a disease of heart muscle, which affects ∼1 in 500 individuals and is characterized by increased left ventricular wall thickness. While HCM is caused by pathogenic variants in any one of eight sarcomere protein genes, clinical expression varies considerably, even among patients with the same pathogenic variant. To determine whether background genetic variation or environmental factors drive these differences, we studied disease progression in 11 pairs of monozygotic HCM twins. The twin pairs were followed for 5 to 14 y, and left ventricular wall thickness, left atrial diameter, and left ventricular ejection fraction were collected from echocardiograms at various time points. All nine twin pairs with sarcomere protein gene variants and two with unknown disease etiologies had discordant morphologic features of the heart, demonstrating the influence of nonhereditable factors on clinical expression of HCM. Whole genome sequencing analysis of the six monozygotic twins with discordant HCM phenotypes did not reveal notable somatic genetic variants that might explain their clinical differences. Discordant cardiac morphology of identical twins highlights a significant role for epigenetics and environment in HCM disease progression., Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing interest.

Background: To assess the genetic architecture of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) in patients of predominantly Chinese ancestry., Methods: We sequenced HCM disease genes in Singaporean patients (n=224) and Singaporean controls (n=3634), compared findings with additional populations and White HCM cohorts (n=6179), and performed in vitro functional studies., Results: Singaporean HCM patients had significantly fewer confidently interpreted HCM disease variants (pathogenic/likely pathogenic: 18%, P <0.0001) but an excess of variants of uncertain significance (24%, P <0.0001), as compared to Whites (pathogenic/likely pathogenic: 31%, excess of variants of uncertain significance: 7%). Two missense variants in thin filament encoding genes were commonly seen in Singaporean HCM (TNNI3:p.R79C, disease allele frequency [AF]=0.018; TNNT2:p.R286H, disease AF=0.022) and are enriched in Singaporean HCM when compared with Asian controls (TNNI3:p.R79C, Singaporean controls AF=0.0055, P =0.0057, genome aggregation database-East Asian AF=0.0062, P =0.0086; TNNT2:p.R286H, Singaporean controls AF=0.0017, P <0.0001, genome aggregation database-East Asian AF=0.0009, P <0.0001). Both these variants have conflicting annotations in ClinVar and are of low penetrance (TNNI3:p.R79C, 0.7%; TNNT2:p.R286H, 2.7%) but are predicted to be deleterious by computational tools. In population controls, TNNI3:p.R79C carriers had significantly thicker left ventricular walls compared with noncarriers while its etiological fraction is limited (0.70 [95% CI, 0.35-0.86]) and thus TNNI3:p.R79C is considered variant of uncertain significance. Mutant TNNT2:p.R286H iPSC-CMs (induced pluripotent stem cells derived cardiomyocytes) show hypercontractility, increased metabolic requirements, and cellular hypertrophy and the etiological fraction (0.93 [95% CI, 0.83-0.97]) support the likely pathogenicity of TNNT2:p.R286H., Conclusions: As compared with Whites, Chinese HCM patients commonly have low penetrance risk alleles in TNNT2 or TNNI3 but exhibit few clinically actionable HCM variants overall. This highlights the need for greater study of HCM genetics in non-White populations.

Background: To treat chronic heart failure (CHF), we developed a robust, easy to handle bioabsorbable tissue-engineered patch embedded with human neonatal fibroblasts and human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs). This patch was implanted on the epicardial surface of the heart covering the previously infarcted tissue., Methods: Sprague-Dawley rats (6-8 weeks old) underwent sham surgery (n = 12) or left coronary artery ligation (n = 45). CHF rats were randomized 3 weeks after ligation to CHF control with sham thoracotomy (n = 21), or a fibroblasts/hiPSC-CMs patch (n = 24) was implanted. All sham surgery rats also underwent a sham thoracotomy. At 3 weeks after randomization, hemodynamics, echocardiography, electrophysiologic, and cell survival studies were performed., Results: Patch-treated rats had decreased (P < .05) left ventricular-end diastolic pressure and the time constant of left ventricular relaxation (Tau), increased anterior wall thickness in diastole, and improved echocardiography-derived indices of diastolic function (E/e' [ratio of early peak flow velocity to early peak LV velocity] and e'/a' [ratio of early to late peak left ventricular velocity]). All rats remained in normal sinus rhythm, with no dysrhythmias. Rats treated with the patch showed improved electrical activity. Transplanted hiPSC-CMs were present at 7 days but not detected at 21 days after implantation. The patch increased (P < .05) gene expression of vascular endothelial growth factor, angiopoietin 1, gap junction α-1 protein (connexin 43), β-myosin heavy 7, and insulin growth factor-1 expression in the infarcted heart., Conclusions: Epicardial implantation of a fibroblasts/hiPSC-CMs patch electrically enhanced conduction, lowered left ventricular end-diastolic pressure, and improved diastolic function in rats with CHF. These changes were associated with increases in cytokine expression., (Copyright © 2019 The Society of Thoracic Surgeons. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Heritable cardiomyopathies are a class of heart diseases caused by variations in a number of genetic loci. Genetic variants on one allele lead to either a degraded protein, which causes a haploinsufficiency of that protein, or a nonfunctioning protein that subverts the molecular system within which the protein works. Over years, both of these mechanisms eventually lead to diseased heart tissue and symptoms of a failing heart. Most cardiomyopathy treatments repurpose heart failure drugs to manage these symptoms and avoid adverse outcomes. There are few therapies that correct the underlying pathogenic genetic or molecular mechanism. This review will reflect on this unmet clinical need in genetic cardiomyopathies and consider a variety of therapies that address the mechanism of disease rather than patient symptoms. These therapies are genetic, targeting a defective gene or transcript, or ameliorating a genetic insufficiency. However, there are also a number of small molecules under exploration that modulate downstream faulty protein products affected in cardiomyopathies.

Human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) offer a renewable source of cells that can be expanded indefinitely and differentiated into virtually any type of cell in the human body, including neurons. This opens up unprecedented possibilities to study neuronal cell and developmental biology and cellular pathology of the nervous system, provides a platform for the screening of chemical libraries that affect these processes, and offers a potential source of transplantable cells for regenerative approaches to neurological disease. However, defining protocols that permit a large number and high yield of neurons has proved difficult. We present differentiation protocols for the generation of distinct subtypes of neurons in a highly reproducible manner, with minimal experiment-to-experiment variation. These neurons form synapses with neighboring cells, exhibit spontaneous electrical activity, and respond appropriately to depolarization. hPSC-derived neurons exhibit a high degree of maturation and survive in culture for up to 4-5 months, even without astrocyte feeder layers., (Copyright © 2016 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)