Cardiotoxicity Testing System Combining the in vitro Pharmacological Assays and Heart Simulator

Abstract

We developed a novel cardiotoxicity testing system combining in vitro channel assays and a three-dimensional heart simulator. The inhibitory effects of drugs were measured for the six ion channels using the automated patch clamp technique. According to the dose-inhibition relations thus obtained, effects of drugs under various plasma concentrations were reproduced by changing parameters values of 22 million cell models implemented in the heart simulator. This system can predict drug-induced proarrhythmic risk more accurately compared with the currently used methods such as the QT interval and the hERG test.