Publications [#162091] of Kam W. Leong

Papers Published

1. N. Bursac and Y. H. Loo and K. Leong and L. Tung, Novel anisotropic engineered cardiac tissues: Studies of electrical propagation, Biochemical And Biophysical Research Communications, vol. 361 no. 4 (October, 2007), pp. 847 -- 853, ISSN 0006-291X
   (last updated on 2009/09/02)

   Abstract:
   The goal of this study was to engineer cardiac tissue constructs with uniformly anisotropic architecture, and to evaluate their electrical function using multi-site optical mapping of cell membrane potentials. Anisotropic polymer scaffolds made by leaching of aligned sucrose templates were seeded with neonatal rat cardiac cells and cultured in rotating bioreactors for 6-14 days. Cells aligned and interconnected inside the scaffolds and when stimulated by a point electrode, supported macroscopically continuous, anisotropic impulse propagation. By culture day 14, the ratio of conduction velocities along vs. across cardiac fibers reached a value of 2, similar to that in native neonatal ventricles, while action potential duration and maximum capture rate, respectively, decreased to 120 ms and increased to similar to 5 Hz. The shorter culture time and larger scaffold thickness were associated with increased incidence of sustained reentrant arrhythmias. In summary, this study is the first successful attempt to engineer a cm(2)-size, functional anisotropic cardiac tissue patch. (C) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.