Modeling Catecholaminergic Polymorphic Ventricular Tachycardia using Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell-derived Cardiomyocytes

Catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia (CPVT) is an inherited arrhythmogenic cardiac disorder characterized by life-threatening arrhythmias induced by physical or emotional stress, in the absence structural heart abnormalities. The arrhythmias may cause syncope or degenerate into cardiac arrest and sudden death which usually occurs during childhood. Recent studies have shown that CPVT is caused by mutations in the cardiac ryanodine receptor type 2 (RyR2) or calsequestrin 2 (CASQ2) genes. Both proteins are key contributors to the intracellular Ca2+ handling process and play a pivotal role in Ca2+ release from the sarcoplasmic reticulum to the cytosol during systole. Although the molecular pathogenesis of CPVT is not entirely clear, it was suggested that the CPVT mutations promote excessive sarcoplasmic reticulum Ca2+ leak, which initiates delayed afterdepolarizations (DADs) and triggered arrhythmias in cardiac myocytes. The recent breakthrough discovery of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) generated from somatic cells (e.g. fibroblasts, keratinocytes) now enables researches to investigate mutated cardiomyocytes generated from the patient's iPSC. To this end, in the present article we review recent studies on CPVT iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes, thus demonstrating in the mutated cells catecholamine-induced DADs and triggered arrhythmias.