Subtype-specific Optical Action Potential Recordings in Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell-derived Ventricular Cardiomyocytes

J Vis Exp. 2018 Sep 27:(139):58134. doi: 10.3791/58134.

Abstract

Cardiomyocytes generated from human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC-CMs) are an emerging tool in cardiovascular research. Rather than being a homogenous population of cells, the iPSC-CMs generated by current differentiation protocols represent a mixture of cells with ventricular-, atrial-, and nodal-like phenotypes, which complicates phenotypic analyses. Here, a method to optically record action potentials specifically from ventricular-like iPSC-CMs is presented. This is achieved by lentiviral transduction with a construct in which a genetically-encoded voltage indicator is under the control of a ventricular-specific promoter element. When iPSC-CMs are transduced with this construct, the voltage sensor is expressed exclusively in ventricular-like cells, enabling subtype-specific optical membrane potential recordings using time-lapse fluorescence microscopy.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Video-Audio Media

MeSH terms

  • Action Potentials / physiology*
  • Cell Differentiation
  • Heart Ventricles / cytology*
  • Humans
  • Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells
  • Membrane Potentials
  • Myocytes, Cardiac / physiology*