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Abstract #2045

Characterization of tissue properties of tissue engineered cardiac patches using DTI at 22.3T

Jeanine J Prompers1, Alain van Mil2, Miguel Castilho3,4, Madison J Ainsworth2,3, Corina Metz2, Vitaly Khlebnikov1, Jos Malda3,5, Joost Sluijter2, and Martijn Froeling1

1Department of Radiology, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands, 2Department of Cardiology, Experimental Cardiology, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands, 3Department of Orthopaedics, University Medical Centre, Utrecht, Netherlands, 4Department of Biomedical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, Netherlands, 5Department of Equine Sciences Faculty of Veterinary Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands

Engineering three-dimensional (3D) tissues with similar properties to native myocardium offers a promising approach to restore cardiac function after myocardial infarction. However, visualizing the orientation of the tissue in tissue engineered cardiac patches using immunofluorescent imaging has proven difficult due to the 3D and dense tissue structure. In this study, we have applied diffusion tensor imaging at 22.3T at ultra-high resolution (62.5μm isotropic) to characterize the tissue properties of cardiac patches. We show that adding fibroblasts induces cellular organization of stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes in the patch, resulting in more diffusion restriction and higher anisotropy, better mimicking native myocardial tissue properties.

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