Ye Zhaoyang, Li Yabei, Zhao Yuxiang, Zhang Junjie, Zhu Tong, Xu Feng, Li Fei
The Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, P. R. China.
Bioinspired Engineering and Biomechanics Center (BEBC), Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, P. R. China.
Anal Chem. 2023 Mar 14;95(10):4634-4643. doi: 10.1021/acs.analchem.2c04758. Epub 2023 Feb 14.
Cardiac tissue is sensitive to and can be easily damaged by exogenous electric stimulation. However, due to the thermal-electric coeffect and the limitation of in situ and quantitative information on the cardiac tissue function under electric stimulation, the detailed effect and the underlying mechanism of exogenous electric stimulation on the cardiac tissue remain elusive. To address this, in this work, we first constructed an in vitro cardiac tissue model and established a thermal-electric coupled theoretical model for simulating the electric field and temperature distributions around the cardiac tissue, from which we selected the electric field strengths (1.19, 2.37, and 3.39 kV cm) and electrical energies (0.001, 0.005, and 0.011 J) for electric stimulations without inducing a thermal effect. Then, we applied electric field stimulations on the cardiac tissue using these parameters and scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM) to in situ and quantitatively monitor the dynamic changes in the key parameters of the cardiac tissue function, including respiratory activity, membrane permeability, and contraction frequency, after electric field stimulations. The SECM results showed that the oxygen consumption, cell membrane permeability coefficient, and contraction frequency of the cardiac tissue were strongly dependent on electrical energy, especially when the electrical energy was higher than 0.001 J. Our work, for the first time, achieves the in situ and quantitative monitoring of the cardiac tissue function under electric stimulation using SECM, which would provide important references for designing an electric stimulation regime for cardiac tissue engineering and clinical application of electrotherapy.
心脏组织对外源电刺激敏感且易受损。然而，由于热电效应以及电刺激下心脏组织功能原位和定量信息的局限性，外源电刺激对心脏组织的详细影响及潜在机制仍不清楚。为解决这一问题，在本研究中，我们首先构建了体外心脏组织模型，并建立了热电耦合理论模型以模拟心脏组织周围的电场和温度分布，从中选择了不会产生热效应的电场强度（1.19、2.37和3.39 kV/cm）和电能（0.001、0.005和0.011 J）用于电刺激。然后，我们使用这些参数对心脏组织施加电场刺激，并利用扫描电化学显微镜（SECM）原位定量监测电刺激后心脏组织功能关键参数的动态变化，包括呼吸活性、膜通透性和收缩频率。SECM结果表明，心脏组织的氧消耗、细胞膜通透性系数和收缩频率强烈依赖于电能，尤其是当电能高于0.001 J时。我们的工作首次实现了利用SECM对电刺激下心脏组织功能进行原位定量监测，这将为心脏组织工程电刺激方案的设计和电疗法的临床应用提供重要参考。
