How To Measure Heart Cell Interaction Using 3D Sensor?

By MedTech Outlook | Tuesday, November 26, 2019

Recently developed organ-on-an-electronic-chip helps to acquire the three-dimensional electrophysiology of heart cells

Fremont, CA: For decades, heart cells were examined using cells and cultures on two-dimensional surfaces, for example, culture dishes. To improve this traditional method of studying the heart’s electrical patterns, researchers have developed a new platform known as organ-on-an-electronic-chip to quantify the three-dimensional electrophysiology of heart cells. The platform comprises 3D, self-rolling bioelectrical sensor arrays designed in a way to curl up over heart cell spheroid tissues to study the cell communication in multicell systems like the heart.

As indicated by the analysis, the organ-on-e-chip approach, while obtaining electrophysiological data from the heart tissue, helps developing drugs and to check its suitability for treating diseases.

Researchers construct organ-on-e-chip in a way such that on the chip surface, they fix an array of sensors, either graphene sensors or those made of metallic electrodes. The process is followed by carving off the “sacrificial layer” that is the base layer of germanium. After the removal of the layer, biosensor array releases from the hold that moves up in a barrel-shaped structure from the surface.

The developed organ-on-e-chip was tried on three-dimensional heart cell structures like cardiac spheroids or elongated organoids. This cardiovascular spheroids width encompasses two to three human hairs. Thus, by winding the bioelectrical sensor platform around the spheroid, scientists can derive the high precision electrical signal readings.

The 3D self-rolling biosensor arrays were developed to investigate the electrophysiology of induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes. Also, this platform can be utilized to examine tissue regeneration and growth. It potentially treats damaged tissues after a heart attack or developing new drugs to treat diseases related to the heart.

All human organs are 3D in nature. But for many years, electrophysiology was carried out using a 2D tissue culture dish. With the emergence of innovative electrophysiology techniques, the study of 3D structures has become feasible. Thus, the core idea of the research is to eliminate the traditional methods executed in a planar geometry and to supplant them with new techniques by implementing the study in three dimensions.