Hong Yan, Huang Xueqing, Li Fang, Huang Siqi, Weng Qibiao, Fraidenraich Diego, Voiculescu Ioana
Department of Computer Science, New York Institute of Technology, Old Westbury, NY 11568, USA.
Department of Mechanical Engineering, New York Institute of Technology, Old Westbury, NY 11568, USA.
Electronics (Basel). 2024 Dec 2;13(24). doi: 10.3390/electronics13244985. Epub 2024 Dec 18.
Cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of death worldwide. The differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) into functional cardiomyocytes offers significant potential for disease modeling and cell-based cardiac therapies. However, hPSC-derived cardiomyocytes (hPSC-CMs) remain largely immature, limiting their experimental and clinical applications. A critical challenge in current in vitro culture systems is the absence of standardized metrics to quantify maturity. This study presents a data-driven pipeline to quantify hPSC-CM maturity using gene expression data across various stages of cardiac development. We determined that culture time serves as a feasible proxy for maturity. To improve prediction accuracy, machine learning algorithms were employed to identify heart-related genes whose expression strongly correlates with culture time. Our results reduced the average discrepancy between predicted and observed culture time to 4.461 days and (Calsequestrin 2), a gene involved in calcium ion storage and transport, was identified as the most critical cardiac gene associated with culture duration. This novel framework for maturity assessment moves beyond traditional qualitative methods, providing deeper insights into hPSC-CM maturation dynamics. It establishes a foundation for developing advanced lab-on-chip devices capable of real-time maturity monitoring and adaptive stimulus selection, paving the way for improved maturation strategies and broader experimental/clinical applications.
心血管疾病是全球主要的死亡原因。将人类多能干细胞(hPSC)分化为功能性心肌细胞为疾病建模和基于细胞的心脏治疗提供了巨大潜力。然而,hPSC衍生的心肌细胞(hPSC-CM)在很大程度上仍不成熟,限制了它们的实验和临床应用。当前体外培养系统中的一个关键挑战是缺乏量化成熟度的标准化指标。本研究提出了一种数据驱动的流程,利用心脏发育各个阶段的基因表达数据来量化hPSC-CM的成熟度。我们确定培养时间可作为成熟度的一个可行替代指标。为了提高预测准确性,采用机器学习算法来识别其表达与培养时间密切相关的心脏相关基因。我们的结果将预测培养时间与观察到的培养时间之间的平均差异降低到了4.461天,并且参与钙离子储存和运输的基因(肌集钙蛋白2)被确定为与培养持续时间最相关的关键心脏基因。这种用于成熟度评估的新框架超越了传统的定性方法,能够更深入地了解hPSC-CM的成熟动力学。它为开发能够进行实时成熟度监测和自适应刺激选择的先进芯片实验室设备奠定了基础,为改进成熟策略和更广泛的实验/临床应用铺平了道路。