Modulation of cardiomyocyte contractility and action potentials with chemogenetic chloride currents.

Transient perturbation of electrical activity is used in neuroscience to study the impact of specific neuronal cell populations on brain function. Similarly, cardiomyocyte (CM) physiology can be controlled by the activation of artificially expressed ion channels. Pharmacologically selective actuator modules (PSAMs) are engineered ligand-gated ion channels that can be activated with small molecules.

Impulse initiation in engrafted pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes can stimulate the recipient heart.

Transplantation of pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes is a novel promising cell-based therapeutic approach for patients with heart failure. However, engraftment arrhythmias are a predictable life-threatening complication and represent a major hurdle for clinical translation. Thus, we wanted to experimentally study whether impulse generation by transplanted cardiomyocytes can propagate to the host myocardium and overdrive the recipient rhythm.

Modulating cardiac physiology in engineered heart tissue with the bidirectional optogenetic tool BiPOLES.

Optogenetic actuators are rapidly advancing tools used to control physiology in excitable cells, such as neurons and cardiomyocytes. In neuroscience, these tools have been used to either excite or inhibit neuronal activity. Cell type-targeted actuators have allowed to study the function of distinct cell populations.

Using a qPCR device to screen for modulators of ABC transporter activity: A step-by-step protocol.

Introduction: Adenosine triphosphate (ATP)-binding cassette (ABC) transporters are transmembrane proteins which actively transport a large variety of substrates across biological membranes. ABC transporter overexpression can be the underlying cause of multidrug resistance in oncology. Moreover, it has been revealed that increased ABCC1 transporter activity can ameliorate behavioural changes and Aβ pathology in a rodent model of Alzheimer's disease and it is currently tested in AD patients.