Background Advancing structural and functional maturation of stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes remains a key challenge for applications in disease modelling, drug screening, and heart repair. Here, we sought to advance cardiomyocyte maturation in engineered human myocardium (EHM) towards an adult phenotype under defined conditions. Methods We systematically investigated cell composition, matrix and media conditions to generate EHM from embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes and fibroblasts with organotypic functionality under serum-free conditions. We employed morphological, functional, and transcriptome analyses to benchmark maturation of EHM. Results EHM demonstrated important structural and functional properties of postnatal myocardium, including: (1) rod-shaped cardiomyocytes with M-bands assembled as a functional syncytium; (2) systolic twitch forces at a similar level as observed in bona fide postnatal myocardium; (3) a positive force-frequency-response; (4) inotropic responses to β-adrenergic stimulation mediated via canonical β1- and β2-adrenoceptor signaling pathways; and (5) evidence for advanced molecular maturation by transcriptome profiling. EHM responded to chronic catecholamine toxicity with contractile dysfunction, cardiomyocyte hypertrophy, cardiomyocyte death, and NT-proBNP release; all are classical hallmarks of heart failure. Additionally, we demonstrate scalability of EHM according to anticipated clinical demands for cardiac repair. Conclusions We provide proof-of-concept for a universally applicable technology for the engineering of macro-scale human myocardium for disease modelling and heart repair from embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes under defined, serum-free conditions.

The dynamics of proteins in aqueous solution has been investigated through a massive approach based on ''state of the art'' molecular dynamics simulations performed for all protein metafolds using the four most popular force fields (OPLS, CHARMM, AMBER, and GROMOS). A detailed analysis of the massive database of trajectories (>1.5 terabytes of data obtained using Ϸ50 years of CPU) allowed us to obtain a robust-consensus picture of protein dynamics in aqueous solution.force field ͉ molecular dynamics ͉ molecular modeling ͉ protein structure

Rational Tissue engineering approaches may improve survival and functional benefits from human embryonic stem cell-derived cardiomyocte (ESC-CM) transplantation, thereby potentially preventing dilative remodelling and progression to heart failure. Objective Assessment of transport stability, long term survival, structural organisation, functional benefits, and teratoma risk of engineered heart muscle (EHM) in a chronic myocardial infarction (MI) model. Methods and Results We constructed EHMs from ESC-CMs and released them for transatlantic shipping following predefined quality control criteria. Two days of shipment did not lead to adverse effects on cell viability or contractile performance of EHMs (n=3, P=0.83, P=0.87). After ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury, EHMs were implanted onto immunocompromised rat hearts at 1 month to simulate chronic ischemia. Bioluminescence imaging (BLI) showed stable engraftment with no significant cell loss between week 2 and 12 (n=6, P=0.67), preserving up to 25% of the transplanted cells. Despite high engraftment rates and attenuated disease progression (change in ejection fraction for EHMs −6.7±1.4% vs control −10.9±1.5%, n>12, P=0.05), we observed no difference between EHMs containing viable or non-viable human cardiomyocytes in this chronic xenotransplantation model (n>12, P=0.41). Grafted cardiomyocytes showed enhanced sarcomere alignment and increased connexin 43 expression at 220 days after transplantation. No teratomas or tumors were found in any of the animals (n=14) used for long-term monitoring. Conclusions EHM transplantation led to high engraftment rates, long term survival, and progressive maturation of human cardiomyocytes. However, cell engraftment was not correlated with functional improvements in this chronic MI model. Most importantly, the safety of this approach was demonstrated by the lack of tumor or teratoma formation.

More than 1700 trajectories of proteins representative of monomeric soluble structures in the protein data bank (PDB) have been obtained by means of state-of-the-art atomistic molecular dynamics simulations in near-physiological conditions. The trajectories and analyses are stored in a large data warehouse, which can be queried for dynamic information on proteins, including interactions. Here, we describe the project and the structure and contents of our database, and provide examples of how it can be used to describe the global flexibility properties of proteins. Basic analyses and trajectories stripped of solvent molecules at a reduced resolution level are available from our web server.

We present a simple method for compression and management of very large molecular dynamics trajectories. The approach is based on the projection of the Cartesian snapshots collected along the trajectory into an orthogonal space defined by the eigenvectors obtained by diagonalization of the covariance matrix. The transformation is mathematically exact when the number of eigenvectors equals 3N-6 (N being the number of atoms), and in practice very accurate even when the number of eigenvectors is much smaller, permitting a dramatic reduction in the size of trajectory files. In addition, we have examined the ability of the method, when combined with interpolation, to recover dense samplings (snapshots collected at a high frequency) from more sparse (lower frequency) data as a method for further data compression. Finally, we have investigated the possibility of using the approach when extrapolating the behavior of the system to times longer than the original simulation period. Overall our results suggest that the method is an attractive alternative to current approaches for including dynamic information in static structure files such as those deposited in the Protein Data Bank.

Proteins are usually described and classified according to amino acid sequence, structure or function. Here, we develop a minimally biased scheme to compare and classify proteins according to their internal mobility patterns. This approach is based on the notion that proteins not only fold into recurring structural motifs but might also be carrying out only a limited set of recurring mobility motifs. The complete set of these patterns, which we tentatively call the dynasome, spans a multi-dimensional space with axes, the dynasome descriptors, characterizing different aspects of protein dynamics. The unique dynamic fingerprint of each protein is represented as a vector in the dynasome space. The difference between any two vectors, consequently, gives a reliable measure of the difference between the corresponding protein dynamics. We characterize the properties of the dynasome by comparing the dynamics fingerprints obtained from molecular dynamics simulations of 112 proteins but our approach is, in principle, not restricted to any specific source of data of protein dynamics. We conclude that: 1. the dynasome consists of a continuum of proteins, rather than well separated classes. 2. For the majority of proteins we observe strong correlations between structure and dynamics. 3. Proteins with similar function carry out similar dynamics, which suggests a new method to improve protein function annotation based on protein dynamics.

Extended all-atom molecular dynamics simulations on all protein metafolds have been performed to obtain a complete picture of the gas phase proteome. The structural atlas of the gas phase proteome obtained here shows an unexpected maintenance of the global and local structure and of the general deformability pattern upon transfer to the gas phase under electrospray conditions. Despite a general compression, the solution structure can be easily very well recognized from the gas phase one, and most structural details, such as secondary structure, are well preserved upon vaporization. Rehydration of the gas phase protein leads in most cases to a very fast transition from gas phase to solution structure. Overall, our massive analysis (over 4 micros in solution and over 12 micros in the gas phase) demonstrates that solution-like structures can be determined by using mass spectroscopy and related techniques to obtain fast approximations to the solution structure.

Proteins are complex macromolecules that evolved over billions of years to be active in aqueous solution. Water is a key element that stabilizes their structure, and most structural studies on proteins have thus been carried out in aqueous environment. However, recent experimental approaches have opened the possibility to gain structural information on proteins from gas‐phase measurements. The obtained results revealed significant structural memory in proteins when transferred from water to the gas phase. However, after several years of experimental and theoretical research, the nature of the structural changes induced by vaporization, the exact characteristics of proteins in the gas phase, and the physicochemical forces stabilizing dehydrated proteins are still unclear. We will review here these issues using both experimental and theoretical sources of information. © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. This article is categorized under: Molecular and Statistical Mechanics > Molecular Interactions