Table 1. . Summary of microenvironmental factors that modulate cardiomyocyte phenotype and function.

Microenvironment	In vitro approach	Results	Ref.
Biochemical	Wnt	Differentiation of hPSCs to CMs (80–90% pure)	[54–57]
	Notch	Differentiation of hPSCs to CMs	[58]
	BMP	CM/cardiac mesoderm specification	[59,60]
	FGF	–	[59]
	IGF-1	CM and cardiac stem cell proliferation Antiapoptotic Prohypertrophic	[61–64]
	Retinoic acid	Differentiation of hPSCs to CMs Antiapoptotic	[65,66]
	Activin A	–	[60]
Electrical	–	Differentiation of hPSCs to CMs CM sarcomere organization CM electrophyiological maturation	[67–70]
Spatial	Topographical patterning	hPSC–CM maturation	[71–73]
	Chemical patterning	CM alignment	[71,74]
Biomechanical	Stiffness Stretch	CM sarcomere organization Calcium dynamics CM alignment	[75,76]

BMP: Bone morphogenetic protein; CM: Cardiomyocyte; hPSC: human pluripotent stem cell.