Recent Advances in Generation of In Vitro Cardiac Organoids
Makoto Sahara
Abstract
Cardiac organoids are in vitro self-organizing and three-dimensional structures composed of multiple cardiac cells (i.e., cardiomyocytes, endothelial cells, cardiac fibroblasts, etc.) with or without biological scaffolds. Since cardiac organoids recapitulate structural and functional characteristics of the native heart to a higher degree compared to the conventional two-dimensional culture systems, their applications, in combination with pluripotent stem cell technologies, are being widely expanded for the investigation of cardiogenesis, cardiac disease modeling, drug screening and development, and regenerative medicine. In this mini-review, recent advances in cardiac organoid technologies are summarized in chronological order, with a focus on the methodological points for each organoid formation. Further, the current limitations and the future perspectives in these promising systems are also discussed.