Key result
In vitro cardiac tissues-on-a-chip models are bridging the translational gap by improving mechanistic understanding of extracellular vesicle signaling in cardiac physiology, disease, and repair.
Why the study?
Discovering new therapies for cardiovascular diseases requires improved cellular-level understanding, but difficulty accessing the heart in vivo has created translational hurdles for extracellular vesicle therapeutics.
This review highlights the potential of in vitro cardiac 'tissues-on-a-chip' models to advance the understanding and clinical translation of extracellular vesicle-based therapeutics for cardiac regeneration.
May accelerate EV therapeutic screening in cardiac models; leaves open clinical translation pending prospective validation.
Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death worldwide. Discovering new therapies to treat heart disease requires improved understanding of cardiac physiology at a cellular level. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are plasma membrane-bound nano- and microparticles secreted by cells and known to play key roles in intercellular communication, often through transfer of biomolecular cargo. Advances in EV research have established techniques for EV isolation from tissue culture media or biofluids, as well as standards for quantitation and biomolecular characterization. EVs released by cardiac cells are known to be involved in regulating cardiac physiology as well as in the progression of myocardial diseases. Due to difficulty accessing the heart in vivo, advanced in vitro cardiac 'tissues-on-a-chip' have become a recent focus for studying EVs in the heart. These physiologically relevant models are producing new insight into the role of EVs in cardiac physiology and disease while providing a useful platform for screening novel EV-based therapeutics for cardiac tissue regeneration post-injury. Numerous hurdles have stalled the clinical translation of EV therapeutics for heart patients, but tissue-on-a-chip models are playing an important role in bridging the translational gap, improving mechanistic understanding of EV signalling in cardiac physiology, disease, and repair.
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Wagner et al. (2021) conducted a review in Cardiovascular diseases. Extracellular vesicles was evaluated. In vitro cardiac tissues-on-a-chip models are bridging the translational gap by improving mechanistic understanding of extracellular vesicle signaling in cardiac physiology, disease, and repair.
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