Key result
Electrical stimulation of intracardiac ganglion neurons increased the inter-beat interval ratio of co-cultured atrial myocytes to 1.13, an effect that was blocked by atropine (ratio 0.99).
A novel microfabrication-based co-culture device successfully demonstrated functional and morphological connections between parasympathetic neurons and atrial myocytes.
Novel co-culture model validates neuron-myocyte coupling; leaves open translation to in vivo arrhythmia therapies.
The sympathetic neurons (SN) and the parasympathetic neurons (PN) have important roles in regulation of the cardiac activity. Imbalance of the SN and the PN activities results in abnormal cardiac electrophysiology and can cause several diseases such as atrial fibrillation. While activities of SN and cardiomyocytes have been studied using microfabrication technique, relationship between activities of PN and cardiomyocytes remains unclear. In this study, we developed a device for co-culture of intracardiac ganglion (ICG) neurons which are parasympathetic neurons and atrial myocytes (AMs) using microfabrication technique. Morphological connections between ICG neurons and AMs were observed by immunostaining. Inter-beat-intervals (IBI) were modulated after electrical stimulation of ICG neurons. This modulation completely blocked after applying atropine, a muscarinic receptor antagonist. These results suggest that the co-culture system can be utilized in the research of cell-cell interactions between parasympathetic neurons and cardiomyocytes.
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Oiwa et al. (2015) studied In vitro co-culture of parasympathetic neurons and cardiomyocytes (n=5). Electrical stimulation of intracardiac ganglion neurons vs. Atropine (1 μM) blockade was evaluated on Inter-beat interval (IBI) ratio of atrial myocytes (p=<0.05). Electrical stimulation of intracardiac ganglion neurons increased the inter-beat interval ratio of co-cultured atrial myocytes to 1.13, an effect that was blocked by atropine (ratio 0.99).
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