Programming Cellular Alignment in Engineered Cardiac Tissue via Bioprinting Anisotropic Organ Building Blocks

Abstract

The ability to replicate the 3D myocardial architecture found in human hearts is a grand challenge. Here, the fabrication of aligned cardiac tissues via bioprinting anisotropic organ building blocks (aOBBs) composed of human induced pluripotent stem cell derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs) is reported. A bioink composed of contractile cardiac aOBBs is first generated and aligned cardiac tissue sheets with linear, spiral, and chevron features are printed. Next, aligned cardiac macrofilaments are printed, whose contractile force and conduction velocity increase over time and exceed the performance of spheroid-based cardiac tissues. Finally, the ability to spatially control the magnitude and direction of contractile force by printing cardiac sheets with different aOBB alignment is highlighted. This research opens new avenues to generating functional cardiac tissue with high cell density and complex cellular alignment.

Keywords: anisotropic organ building blocks; bioprinting; cardiomyocytes; engineered cardiac tissue.