Perfecting In Vitro Cardiac Contractility to Better Predict Human Physiology

Desirable biochemical effects do not assure beneficial pharmacology in the human heart. The complexity of the cardiac contractile apparatus often results in pharmacophores producing multiple simultaneous effects on muscle performance. Generating a complete and accurate picture of cardiac contractility in human tissues is essential for hitting the desired physiological mark for assessing therapeutics and modeling disease.

In addition to standard cardiac contractility measurements (twitch forces and kinetics), Propria is the only commercial hEHT platform that measures length-dependent activation (LDA). LDA is an in vitro surrogate for “cardiac reserve”, or the capacity of the heart muscle to mechanically respond to changing physiological needs. Propria hEHTs are uniquely able to be stretched to multiple lengths while measuring contraction, revealing key information about effects on heart physiology in vivo.

In vitro disease models enable mutation and patient-specific disease phenotyping and assessment of therapies in the context of human cells. Propria engineers and profiles hEHTs from human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC)-derived cardiomyocytes harboring disease-associated mutations.