The effects and mechanisms of cardiac arrhythmias are still incompletely understood and an important subject of cardiovascular research. A major difficulty for investigating arrhythmias is the lack of appropriate human models. Here, we present a protocol for a translational simulation of different types of arrhythmias using human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CM) and electric cell culture pacing. The protocol comprises the handling of ventricular and atrial hiPSC-CM before and during in vitro arrhythmia simulation and possible arrhythmia simulation protocols mimicking clinical arrhythmias like atrial fibrillation. Isolated or confluent hiPSC-CM can be used for the simulation. In vitro arrhythmia simulation did not impair cell viability of hiPSC-CM and could reproduce arrhythmia associated phenotypes of patients. The use of hiPSC-CM enables patient-specific studies of arrhythmias, genetic interventions, or drug-screening. Thus, the in vitro arrhythmia simulation protocol may offer a versatile tool for translational studies on the mechanisms and treatment options of cardiac arrhythmias.
Copyright: © 2024 Bommer et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.