2025-09-12 カリフォルニア大学アーバイン校
<関連情報>
- https://news.uci.edu/2025/09/12/uc-irvine-engineers-develop-technology-that-stimulates-heart-cells-with-light/
- https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2509467122
相補的な生体分子共集合体が心臓光刺激装置のエネルギー輸送を制御する Complementary biomolecular coassemblies direct energy transport for cardiac photostimulators
Ze-Fan Yao https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5590-0768, Sujeung Lim, Yuyao Kuang, +15 , and Herdeline Ann M. Ardoña
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Published:September 4, 2025
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2509467122
Significance
Sustained electrophysiological signals play a critical role in powering the autonomous function of excitable tissues, such as those found in the heart. Traditional approaches to mimicking this phenomenon and delivering external electrical signals in vitro have been limited by the spatial resolution, specificity, and compatibility with soft interfaces due to the nature of the electrodes used in this process. Inspired by transport mechanisms in natural photosynthetic systems, here, we introduce a cardiac biomaterial interface composed of complementary peptide pairs that drive the ordering of electroactive units, serving as conduits for photoinduced energy transport. We show that light can be converted into cardiac stimulatory cues by synthetic biomacromolecules, with properties sensitive to the choice of sequence pairs.
Abstract
Charge and energy transport within living systems are fundamental processes that enable the autonomous function of excitable cells and tissues. To date, localized control of these transport processes has been enabled by genetic modification approaches to render light sensitivity to cells. Here, we present peptidic nanoassemblies as constituents of a cardiac biomaterial platform that leverages complementary sequence interactions to direct photoinduced energy transport at the cellular interface. Photophysical characterizations and conductivity measurements confirm the occurrence of energy/charge transfer and photocurrent generation upon optical excitation in both dry and electrolytic environments. Comparing an electrostatic sequence pair against a sequence-matched donor–acceptor coassembly, we demonstrate that the sequence design with charge complementarity shows more prominent photocurrent behavior. With the flanking bioadhesive units, the primary and stem cell–derived cardiomyocytes interfaced with covalently stabilized films of the optoelectronic nanostructures exhibited material-stimulated genotypic, structural, or functional cardiac features. Collectively, our findings introduce an optoelectronic cardiac biomaterial where coassembled peptide nanostructures are molecularly designed to induce light sensitivity in excitable cells without gene modification, influencing in vitro cardiac contractile behavior and expression of cardiac markers.
