Drug-induced cardiotoxicity, particularly following anti-cancer therapy, is a major concern in drug discovery and development. Cardiotoxicity can be functional or structural by nature. To prevent drug-induced cardiotoxicity in the clinic, there is an urgent need for physiologically relevant in vitro models that can predict both functional and structural drug-induced cardiotoxic effects.
We aimed to develop a multiparametric approach to assess drug-induced cardiotoxicity in human iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes on a functional as well as structural level. For this, drug-induced effects of chemotherapeutic drugs were assessed at different exposure times using various assays, such as multielectrode array (MEA) and impedance technology, cardiac troponin I (cTnI) release and ATP assays.
The results in this scientific poster show that human iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes can capture clinically relevant cardiotoxic effects of chemotherapeutics. Importantly, our multiparametric approach to examine cardiotoxicity in iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes allows a comprehensive assessment for predicting cardiotoxic risks of compounds.