Table 1.

Cardiac differentiation in microdevices featuring high control over physicochemical stimulation.

Physics	Stimulation type	Cell environment	Cell type	Readout	Reference
Biochemical	Matrigel, B27 minus insulin supplement	3D	hiPSCs	Sarcomeric α-actin, and DAPI	Mathur et al. (2015) [24]
Biomimicry	Nanofiber scaffolds (macroscale)	3D	Embryoid bodies (EBs) from mESC	Sarcomeric α-actin, and connexin 43	Ghasemi-Mobarakeha et al. (2013) [111]
	Collagen type I interspersed with laminin	3D	EBs from mESC	PECAM (FITC), beating cells	Battista et al. (2005) [112]
Electrical	Electrodes – 304 stainless steel and titanium rods (10 cm × 1.3 mm)	2D	hESC	Troponin T, beating cells	Serena et al. (2009) [113]
	Indium tin oxide electrodes	2D	hASC	Connexin 43, F-actin, and beating cells	Tandon et al. (2010) [114]
	Carbon electrodes	3D	mPSC	Contraction force measurement	Boudou et al. (2012) [22]
	Electrodes in a Petri dish after biowire maturation	3D	hPSC	Sarcomeric α-actinin, Troponin T, and beating cells	Nunes et al. (2013) [95]
Mechanical	Auxotonic load	3D	mPSC, hiPSC	Calcium release, beating cells	Thavandiran et al. (2013) [23]
Electromechanical	PDMS/CNT electrodes + cyclic strain	2D	hBM-MSC	qRT-PCR	Pavesi et al. (2015) [115]
	Carbon electrodes, static stretch	3D	mPSC	Beating cells	Miklas et al. (2014) [96]
	Graphite electrodes, auxotonic contraction	3D	mPSC	Calcium release, beating cells	Godier-Furnémont et al. (2015) [97]
Coculture	Mouse endothelial cells	3D	Neonatal mouse CMs	TUNEL (apoptosis), beating cells, and connexin 43	Narmoneva et al. (2004) [108]
	Organised capillary network between artery and vein	2D	Neonatal rats CMs	Troponin T, connexin 43, and beating cells	Chiu et al. (2012) [110]
	Superior cervical ganglion neurons	3D	iPSC-CMs	Beating cells	Takeuchi et al. (2011, 2012, and 2013) [103–105], Miwa et al. (2013) [106]