Cardiac arrhythmias represent about 50% of the cardiovascular diseases which are the first cause of mortality in the world. Implantable medical devices play a major role for treating these arrhythmias. Nevertheless the leads induce an unwanted biological phenomenon called fibrosis. This phenomenon begins at a cellular level and is effective at a macroscopic scale causing tissue remodelling with a local modification of the active cardiac tissue. Fibrosis mechanism is complex but at the cellular level, it mainly consists in cardiac fibroblasts activation and differentiation into myofibroblasts. We developed a simplified in vitro model of cardiac fibrosis, with human cardiac fibroblasts whom differentiation into myofibroblasts was promoted with TGF-β1. Our study addresses an unreported impedance-based method for real-time monitoring of in vitro cardiac fibrosis. The objective was to study whether the differentiation of cardiac fibroblasts in myofibroblasts had a specific signature on the cell index, an impedance-based feature measured by the xCELLigence system. Primary human cardiac fibroblasts were cultured along 6 days, with or without laminin coating, to study the role of this adhesion protein in cultures long-term maintenance. The cultures were characterized in the presence or absence of TGF-β1 and we obtained a significant cell index signature specific to the human cardiac fibroblasts differentiation.

中文翻译：

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人心脏成纤维细胞体外分化为肌成纤维细胞：使用电阻抗表征

心律失常约占心血管疾病的50%，心血管疾病是世界上首位死亡原因。植入式医疗设备在治疗这些心律失常方面发挥着重要作用。然而，这些导线会引发一种不需要的生物现象，称为纤维化。这种现象始于细胞水平，并在宏观尺度上有效，导致组织重塑，并局部改变活动的心脏组织。纤维化机制复杂，但在细胞水平上，主要表现为心肌成纤维细胞的活化和向肌成纤维细胞的分化。我们开发了一个简化的体外心脏纤维化模型，其中人心脏成纤维细胞被 TGF- 促进分化为肌成纤维细胞β1. 我们的研究解决了一种未报告的基于阻抗的实时监测方法体外心脏纤维化。目的是研究心肌成纤维细胞在肌成纤维细胞中的分化是否具有细胞指数的特定特征，细胞指数是 xCELLigence 系统测量的基于阻抗的特征。原代人心脏成纤维细胞在有或没有层粘连蛋白涂层的情况下培养 6 天，以研究这种粘附蛋白在培养物长期维持中的作用。培养物的特征在于存在或不存在 TGF-β1，我们获得了人类心脏成纤维细胞分化特有的重要细胞指数特征。