A complete workflow for the differentiation and the dissociation of hiPSC-derived cardiospheres

Cardiomyocytes derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSC-CMs) are an invaluable tool for both basic and translational cardiovascular research. The potential that these cells hold for therapy, disease modeling and drug discovery is hampered by several bottlenecks that currently limit both the yield and the efficiency of cardiac induction. Here, we present a complete workflow for the production of ready-to-use hiPSC-CMs in a dynamic suspension bioreactor. This includes the efficient and highly reproducible differentiation of hiPSCs into cardiospheres, which display enhanced physiological maturation compared to static 3D induction in hanging drops, and a novel papain-based dissociation method that offers higher yield and viability than the broadly used dissociation reagents TrypLE and Accutase. Molecular and functional analyses of the cardiomyocytes reseeded after dissociation confirmed both the identity and the functionality of the cells, which can be used in downstream applications, either as monolayers or spheroids. [Display omitted] •The BioLevitator supports effective differentiation of cardiospheres from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs).•Papain from Carica papaya outperforms broadly-used dissociation reagents in generating single viable cardiomyocytes.•Cardiomyocytes obtained from papain dissociation display molecular and functional characteristics typical of hiPSC-CMs.