Phenotypic variation between stromal cells differentially impacts engineered cardiac tissue function

Understanding the relationship between parenchymal and supporting cell populations is paramount to recapitulate the multicellular complexity of native tissues. Incorporation of stromal cells is widely recognized to be necessary for the stable formation of stem cell-derived cardiac tissues, yet the types of stromal cells used has varied widely. This study systematically characterized several stromal populations and found that stromal phenotype and morphology was highly variable depending on cell source and exerted differential impacts on cardiac tissue function and iPSC-CM phenotype. Therefore, the choice of supporting stromal population can differentially impact the phenotypic or functional performance of engineered cardiac tissues. RNA-sequencing experiment to compare transcriptomes of multiple stromal cell populations commonly used in cardiac tissue engineering studies