

Cardiac Translational Impedance Assays and MEA Assays
Metrion offers a set of reliable and reproducible translational human cardiovascular assays to demonstrate the cardiac safety of your therapeutic compounds in line with current and future CiPA and FDA guidelines.
Plate-based Impedance And MEA Assays
Metrion offers a number of translational plate-based impedance and MEA assays to study cardiac cell patho-physiology using human iPSC models. Currently Metrion has three multi-electrode array (MEA) systems. Our systems enable stand-alone MEA recording (MED64, Axion Maestro) or MEA combined with impedance readout (CardioExcyte96). All three platforms offer plate-based recording at 37°C using non-invasive, label free recording techniques for both short and long term monitoring of compound activity. The Axion Maestro is a high throughput device containing a total of 768 electrodes and features options to record in 24, 48 or 96-well formats. The CardioExcyte96 platform offers dual readout from a single electrode in 96-well format, recording both electrical activity (MEA) and cardiac beating (impedance) from the same population of cells. MED64 offers stimulation via any two of its 64 electrodes and offers an impressive signal to noise ratio.
Investigate the functional characteristics of cardiac cells
MEA platforms are a powerful tool to investigate the electrophysiological characteristics of excitable cells. Human iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes plated directly on to recording electrodes rapidly establish a coordinated network of beating cells. Extracellular field potentials (EFP) of cardiac action potential activity can be recorded and used to assess the effects of compounds on excitability, beat rate regularity and conduction velocity, and to compare the physiology and pharmacology of cell populations from different origins. MEA recording can also be used to verify the actions of compounds developed to be active in a specific cardiac cell phenotype, e.g. atrial vs ventricular.

Impedance recordings rely on the formation of confluent cell layers, to allow measurements of changes in cell shape and connectivity, and thus enable the quantitative monitoring of adhesion (viability) and contraction of spontaneously, synchronously beating iPSC cardiomyocytes. Hybrid MEA-impedance screening with CardioExcyte96 enables the integration of complementary information reflecting complex physiological parameters such as cardiac AP firing vscontraction beat rate, amplitude and duration. This impedance platform is ideally suited to identifying cardiac arrythmias such as EADs (Fig. 2) and dissociating contractile effects from changes in electrical activity.

The non-invasive recordings made from cells within a network in a physiologically relevant environment also make the CardioExcyte96 platform ideal for investigating both acute short term effects and chronic cardiotoxicity of compounds over a period of several days. There is growing awareness of the potential of marketed and investigational drugs to produce long term effects on cardiac function, such as doxorubicin and various tyrosine kinase inhibitors used in oncology.

Cardiac Translational Assays Resource Library

White Papers
Presentations
- Validation of an impedance-based phenotypic screening assay able to detect multiple mechanisms of chronic cardiotoxicity in human stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes. Presentation by Marc Rogers, CSO Metrion Biosciences, Nanion technologies Exhibitor session, 2020 Biophysical Society meeting, San Diego USA.
- In depth profiling of human iPSC cardiomyocytes: From electrophysiology to phenotypic assays. Presentation by Metrion Biosciences’ Said El Haou, Ncardia Workshop, Cologne, 29th November – 1st December 2017.
Posters
- Development of an Impedance Based Screening Assay for Cardiac Safety and Cardiotoxicity Detection in Stem Cell derived Cardiomyocytes. Safety Pharmacology Society Annual Meeting, Barcelona, 2019
- Metrion Biosciences: high quality ion channel drug discovery service provider. Milner Therapeutics Symposium, Cambridge, 2019
- Assessment of human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes for evaluating drug-induced arrhythmias with multi-electrode array. Safety Pharmacology Society meeting, Washington DC, USA 2018.
- Functional characterisation of human iPSC-derived atrial cardiomyocytes. SelectBio Stem Cells and Antibodies in Drug Discovery, Cambridge, May 2018.
- Refining in vitro QPatch cardiac ion channel QPatch and MEA iPSC cardiomyocyte assays for CiPA. SOT San Antonio 2018 poster Late Breaking 12: Safety Assessment: Pharmaceutical and Non-Pharmaceutical.
- Comprehensive Profiling of Axiogenesis Ventricular vCor.4U iPSC-Derived Cardiomyocytes – From Electrophysiology to Phenotypic Assays. SPS Berlin 2017 poster 175.
- Differentiation and Validation of Human iPSC-Derived Atrial Cardiomyocytes. SPS Berlin 2017 poster 176.
- Electrophysiological Characterisation of Cellular Dynamics International Ventricular iCell2 iPSC-Derived Cardiomyocytes. SPS Berlin 2017 poster 177.
- Monitoring drug-induced cytotoxicity and hepatotoxicity using impedance. Advances in Cell Based Screening, Gothenburg, May 2017.
- Human ventricular stem cell cardiomyocytes: validating in vitro assays and screening platforms for proarrhythmia risk prediction. SPS Vancouver September 2016 poster 0242.
- Human stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes: in vitro assays and screening platforms for exploring ventricular and atrial phenotypes. SPS Vancouver September 2016 poster 0247.
- Electrophysiological profiling of Axiogenesis CorV.4U iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes. Axiogenesis Workshop Cologne September 2016.
Flyers
- Metrion-Nanion collaboration flyer highlighting Patchliner and CardioExcyte 96 services
- Metrion’s Complete CiPA Toolkit flyer.
- iPSC-Derived Cardio myocyte Characterisation Services flyer.
Publications
Videos

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