Development of a Platform of Cellular Interaction in Tissue Patterns: In Vitro Model of Endomycardial Fibrosis

Cardiac arrhythmias and conduction disorders constitute an important group within cardiovascular diseases. Cardiac arrhythmias are derived from multiple factors, including fibrosis in which multifactorial processes are involved as a result of complex cellular interactions. The purpose of this study was to develop a platform for evaluating cellular interactions in tissue patterns to replicating structural behaviors of endomyocardial fibrosis in irregular and compact circular microarchitectures in an in vitro model of cardiomyocytes and fibroblasts. For this research, pattern geometries were designed and modeled emulating the tissue distribution of the circular compact and irregular of endomyocardial fibrosis using Solid EdgeR and Corel DrawR software, and then they were used as molds to generate inserts of ParafilmR, later the cell patterning technique was implemented in the in vitro model of cardiomyocytes and fibroblasts emulating endomyocardial fibrosis. Finally, cocultures were stained with hematoxylin-eosin and observed by light field microscopy. In this investigation, it was found that the developed platform allowed the generation of cellular patterns that replicated endomyocardial fibrosis microarchitectures, in which morphological changes were evidenced after the interaction of the RL-14 cardiomyocytes with the 3T3 fibroblasts in the in vitro model; allowing to evaluate biological characteristics such as, proliferation and spatial distribution.