From fetus towards adult : maturation and functional analysis of pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes

Abstract

This thesis describes research about the differentiation of human stem cells into cardiomyocytes (heart cells). During the differentiation process the stem cells become contractile myocytes that resemble the native heart cells. Nevertheless, the phenotype of these cardiomyocytes is comparable to a second trimester fetal heart cells. These thesis describes different approaches to induce maturity into the stem cell derived cardiomyocytes, such as changing the substrate stiffness, cell patterning and small molecule based medium. The maturation level achieved unveiled the contractile phenotype on cardiomyocytes derived from patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. The end of this thesis describes a novel method to culture and expand multipotent cardiac progenitor cells.