MYOCHITO

The main objective of this project is to develop new acellular patches that will allow regeneration and functional recovery of the cardiac muscle after acute myocardial infarction. The strategy is to associate polysaccharide hydrogels with the secretome of mesenchymal stem cells and then to evaluate these biomaterials in vitro (cardiomyocyte cultures) and in vivo (rat model of cardiomyopathy). Thus polysaccharide-based gels will be produced varying in composition and associated or not with the secretome. The retention of various components of the secretome within the gels will be investigated, probably affected by gels composition and their physico-chemical properties. Moreover, the association of oppositely charged polymers to produce hydrogels will allow the modulation of the mechanical and biological properties of the final biomaterials. Rat and canine cardiomyocytes will be cultured in vitro on gels to assess the effect of gel composition or the secretome compounds on the survival, proliferation and functionalities of cardiomyocytes. In vivo evaluation will be carried out in a rat myocardial infarction model to evaluate therapeutic potential of this approach. Thus, gathering knowledge from these in vitro and in vivo evaluations will allow us to investigate the transposition from rat to canine models in order to prepare a further pre-clinical experiment on dog model.