Cited by 50Tissue Engineering and Regenerative MedicineSex and Gender in HealthcarePluripotent Stem Cells Research

A framework for developing sex-specific engineered heart models

Open access
Lock, Roberta, Al Asafen, Hadel, Fleischer, Sharon, Tamargo, Manuel, Zhao, Yimu, Radisic, Milica, Vunjak-Novakovic, Gordana·2021·Nature Reviews Materials

Abstract

The convergence of tissue engineering and patient-specific stem cell biology has enabled the engineering of in vitro tissue models that allow the study of patient-tailored treatment modalities. However, sex-related disparities in health and disease, from systemic hormonal influences to cellular-level differences, are often overlooked in stem cell biology, tissue engineering and preclinical screening. The cardiovascular system, in particular, shows considerable sex-related differences, which need to be considered in cardiac tissue engineering. In this Review, we analyse sex-related properties of the heart muscle in the context of health and disease, and discuss a framework for including sex-based differences in human cardiac tissue engineering. We highlight how sex-based features can be implemented at the cellular and tissue levels, and how sex-specific cardiac models could advance the study of cardiovascular diseases. Finally, we define design criteria for sex-specific cardiac tissue engineering and provide an outlook to future research possibilities beyond the cardiovascular system.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1038/s41578-021-00381-1

Cites

276 of 276 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Men and women differ in drug absorption, distribution and metabolism, which affects efficacy and safety.

    “there are sex-related differences in how men and women absorb, distribute and metabolize drugs, ultimately affecting drug efficacy and safety48,130,131.”

    From Human disease models in drug development (2023) · cites this paper as [48]

    The “Drug efficacy and toxicity” subsection (page unavailable) reports sex differences in drug efficacy, adverse reactions, and the metabolism of cardiovascular drugs. It does not specifically establish sex differences in drug absorption or distribution, so those parts of the attributed claim are unsupported. (LLM, conf=0.86)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 5

  1. [139]Khalid, N., Ahmad, S. A., Shlofmitz, E. & Chhabra, L. Pathophysiology of Takotsubo Syndrome (StatPearls Publishing, 2021). 30844187
  2. [161]Ferri, F. in Ferri’s Clinical Advisor 2019 1st edn (Elsevier, 2018).
  3. [166]Sapir, Y., Ruvinov, E., Polyak, B. & Cohen, S. in Cardiac Tissue Engineering: Methods and Protocols (eds Radisic, M. & Black, L. D. III) 83–95 (Springer, 2014).
  4. [236]Savarese, G. & D’Amario, D. in Sex-Specific Analysis of Cardiovascular Function Vol. 1065 (eds. Kerkhof, P. L. M. & Miller, V. M.) 529–544 (Springer, 2018).
  5. [255]Turnbull, I. C. et al. in Experimental Models of Cardiovascular Diseases: Methods and Protocols (ed. Ishikawa, K.) 145–159 (Springer, 2018).

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Lock, R., Al Asafen, H., Fleischer, S., Tamargo, M., Zhao, Y., Radisic, M., & Vunjak-Novakovic, G.
Affiliations
  • Columbia University (US)
  • University of Toronto (CA)
Venue
Nature Reviews Materials
Published
2021-10-20
Volume
7
Issue
4
Pages
295-313
ISSN
2058-8437 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W3207902372
Cited by
50
References
275
Citations by year
2026: 6 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 14 · 2023: 12 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 1
FWCI
2.17
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Nature Reviews Materials (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
  • National Science Foundation (NSF16478)
  • National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NNX16AO69A)
  • National Institutes of Health (2r01hl076485-16, NSF16478, EB027062, HL076485, EB025765)
  • National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (R01-HL076485)
  • National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (UG3EB025765, UH3EB025765, P41EB027062)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Surgery › Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Sex and Gender in Healthcare
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Pluripotent Stem Cells Research
Keywords
sex differences, cardiac tissue engineering, cardiovascular disease, in vitro cardiac models

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review