Cardiotoxicity evaluation using human embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes

Background: Cardiotoxicity remains an important concern in drug discovery. Human pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (hPSC-CMs) have become an attractive platform to evaluate cardiotoxicity. However, the consistency between human embryonic stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (hESC-CMs) and human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs) in prediction of cardiotoxicity has yet to be elucidated. Methods: Here we screened the toxicities of four representative drugs (E-4031, isoprenaline, quinidine, and haloperidol) using both hESC-CMs and hiPSC-CMs, combined with an impedance-based bioanalytical method. Results: It showed that both hESC-CMs and hiPSC-CMs can recapitulate cardiotoxicity and identify the effects of well-characterized compounds. Conclusions: The combined platform of hPSC-CMs and an impedance-based bioanalytical method could improve preclinical cardiotoxicity screening, holding great potential for increasing drug development accuracy.