Gisone Ilaria, Cecchettini Antonella, Ceccherini Elisa, Persiani Elisa, Morales Maria Aurora, Vozzi Federico
Institute of Clinical Physiology, National Research Council (CNR), Pisa, Italy.
Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.
Front Bioeng Biotechnol. 2022 Oct 3;10:980393. doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2022.980393. eCollection 2022.
The overall increase in cardiovascular diseases and, specifically, the ever-rising exposure to cardiotoxic compounds has greatly increased animal testing; however, mainly due to ethical concerns related to experimental animal models, there is a strong interest in new models focused on the human heart. In recent years, human pluripotent stem cells-derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs) emerged as reference cell systems for cardiac studies due to their biological similarity to primary CMs, the flexibility in cell culture protocols, and the capability to be amplified several times. Furthermore, the ability to be genetically reprogrammed makes patient-derived hiPSCs, a source for studies on personalized medicine. In this mini-review, the different models used for cardiac studies will be described, and their pros and cons analyzed to help researchers choose the best fitting model for their studies. Particular attention will be paid to hiPSC-CMs and three-dimensional (3D) systems since they can mimic the cytoarchitecture of the human heart, reproducing its morphological, biochemical, and mechanical features. The advantages of 3D heart models compared to traditional 2D cell cultures will be discussed, and the differences between scaffold-free and scaffold-based systems will also be spotlighted.
心血管疾病的总体增加，尤其是对心脏毒性化合物的暴露不断上升，极大地增加了动物实验；然而，主要由于与实验动物模型相关的伦理问题，人们对专注于人类心脏的新模型有着浓厚的兴趣。近年来，人多能干细胞衍生的心肌细胞（hiPSC-CMs）因其与原代心肌细胞的生物学相似性、细胞培养方案的灵活性以及能够多次扩增的能力，成为心脏研究的参考细胞系统。此外，基因重编程的能力使患者来源的hiPSC成为个性化医学研究的一个来源。在本综述中，将描述用于心脏研究的不同模型，并分析其优缺点，以帮助研究人员为其研究选择最合适的模型。将特别关注hiPSC-CMs和三维（3D）系统，因为它们可以模拟人类心脏的细胞结构，再现其形态、生化和机械特征。将讨论3D心脏模型相对于传统2D细胞培养的优势，也将突出无支架和基于支架的系统之间的差异。
