Cardiac-mimetic cell-culture system for direct cardiac reprogramming

Rationale: Cardiovascular diseases often cause substantial heart damage and even heart failure due to the limited regenerative capacity of adult cardiomyocytes.The direct cardiac reprogramming of fibroblasts could be a promising therapeutic option for these patients.Although exogenous transcriptional factors can induce direct cardiac reprogramming, the reprogramming efficiency is too low to be used clinically.Herein, we introduce a cardiac-mimetic cell-culture system that resembles the microenvironment in the heart and provides interactions with cardiomyocytes and electrical cues to the cultured fibroblasts for direct cardiac reprogramming.Methods: Nano-thin and nano-porous membranes and heart like electric stimulus were used in the cardiac-mimetic cell-culture system.The human neonatal dermal fibroblasts containing cardiac transcription factors were plated on the membrane and cultured w…