In this paper, we present an intelligent piezoelectric transducer that can automatically monitor the contractile behavior of cardiomyocytes for the application of drug screening. By integrating a biomimetic substrate and a piezoelectric smart structure, neonatal rat cardiomyocytes could adhere onto the surface of the piezoelectric transducer, and their mechanical contractions could be measured in real time. Preliminary studies demonstrated that spontaneous beating cardiomyocytes could be induced after 6-day culture, and mechanical contractions of cells were detected by the piezoelectric transducer at day-12. This piezoelectric transducer can easily be scaled up to a large piezoelectric transducer array for parallel studies of multiple 2-D cardiac microtissues. Mechanical information of cardiac microtissues like beating frequency, contraction rate, contractile force and profile can be massively and quantitatively monitored and be used to screen drug effects and identify their cardiotoxicity.
['Jia-Wei Shen', 'Yu-Huan Lin', 'Yu-Hsiang Hsu']
A polymer-based piezoelectric transducer for real-time monitoring contractile behavior of cardiomyocytes