Thread by @MariluCasini

1/ Out now on @ScienceAdvances!

#StemCells are a wonderful tool to create atrial cardiomyocytes that spontaneously and continuosly beat in a dish… but what happens if we transfect them with the highly potassium selective channelrhodopsin WiChR? #Thread

science.org/doi/full/10.11…

2/ WiChR is a channel that comes from the marine species Wobblia Lunata.

Differently from previosly described K+-conducting channels such as HcKcR1, this channel is characterized by small photocurrent inactivation and improved light sensitivity. #Thread #Physiology #Optogenetics

3/ During my secondment and thanks to the collaboration with @JoH_VieR and other labs, we successfully transfected my hiPSC-derived atrial cardiomyocytes with WiChR.
This beating cluster in the video is one of those that I indented to get sharp electrode recording! #StemCell

4/ What did we see during sharp electrode recordings?

A reversible inhibition of action potentials during blue-light application. In 10 of 11 recordings, WiChR-elicited currents were sufficient to fully inhibit action potentials in syncytia of electrically coupled aCM! #StemCell

5/ Why is this work so important?

There are still many doubts on how cardiac arrhythmias work and how to treat them. What we show here is a new and powerful tool to to study these cardiac diseases and why not... to reversibly ablate! #Medicine #AFib

science.org/doi/full/10.11…

6/ As end of this #Thread, I would like to thank @JoH_VieR , @FranziskaWarme and Remi for giving me the opportunity of being part of this project. And last but not least, thanks to all the other collaborators of this amazing work! #Research #StemCell #CardioTwitter

7/ Cheers with THE video of the first time we recorded the first action potential silencing! As you can see the excitement was high :D

Congrats to everyone @JoH_VieR @FranziskaWarme @_ChGrimm @BejaLab @EmilianiLab @ObiWanEnnobi @linda_tillert and thanks to @PersonalizeAF project