Dawn Pedrotty, PhD

 

Cellular cardiomyoplasty involves the transplantation of donor cells into injured myocardium to improve compromised cardiac function. Current clinical trials of cellular cardiomyoplasty utilize bone marrow derived stem cells and skeletal myoblasts as two possible donor cell types. How particular donor cells interact with, and possibly alter, the electro-mechanical function of host cardiac tissue remains poorly understood. Therefore, the main goal of this research was to elucidate the mechanisms of possible interactions between the donor cells and host cardiomyocytes under well-defined in vitro conditions and to systematically examine the role that these interactions play in electrical functioning of a cardiac network.

First we used micropatterned cocultures of cardiomyocytes and different types of donor cells. Optical mapping of membrane potentials was performed to determine if, and under what conditions, can donor cells support impulse propagation within the cardiac network. Second, we studied the effects of paracrine signaling on the ability of host and donor cells to electromechanically connect and propagate action potentials using host or donor cell conditioned media.

dmp10@duke.edu