Remote magnetic nanoparticle manipulation enables the dynamic patterning of cardiac tissues

Abstract

The ability to manipulate cellular organization within soft materials has important potential in biomedicine and regenerative medicine; however, it often requires complex fabrication procedures. Here, we develop a simple, cost-effective, and one-step approach that enables the control of cell orientation within 3-dimensional (3D) collagen hydrogels to dynamically create various tailored microstructures of cardiac tissues. This isachieved by incorporating iron-oxide nanoparticles into human cardiomyocytes (CMs) and applying a short-term external magnetic field to orient the cells along the applied field to impart different shapes without any mechanical supports. The patterned constructs areviable and functional, canbe detected by T2*-weighted MRI and induceno alteration to normal cardiac function after grafting onto rat hearts. This strategy paves the way to creating customized, macroscale, 3D tissue constructs with various cell-types for therapeutic and bioengineering applications, as well as providing powerful models for investigating tissue behavior.