A microfluidic platform for the high-throughput study of pathological cardiac hypertrophy

Current in vitro models fall short in deciphering the mechanisms of cardiac hypertrophy induced by volume overload. We developed a pneumatic microfluidic platform for high-throughput studies of cardiac hypertrophy that enables repetitive (hundreds of thousands of times) and robust (over several weeks) manipulation of cardiac μtissues. The platform is reusable for stable and reproducible mechanical stimulation of cardiac μtissues (each containing only 5000 cells). Heterotypic and homotypic μtissues produced in the device were pneumatically loaded in a range of regimes, with real-time on-chip analysis of tissue phenotypes. Concentrated loading of the three-dimensional cardiac tissue faithfully recapitulated the pathology of volume overload seen in native heart tissue. Sustained volume overload of μtissues was sufficient to induce pathological cardiac remodeling associated with upregulation of the fetal gene program, in a dose-dependent manner.