Fig. 3.

Applications of natural hydrogels in cardiac tissue engineering. A) Schematic representation of healthy cardiac tissue vs. infarcted cardiac tissue. It can be seen the infarcted region does not exhibit contractile nor conductive behavior, as a result of an excessive amount of matrix. Created with BioRender.com B) Carbon functionalized GelMA constructs, exhibiting increased Cx-43 and Troponin I expression, as well as improved cellular alignment. Reproduced with permission [149]. Copyright 2019, American Chemical Society. C) Collagen hydrogels functionalized with AuNPs shows the best expression of cardiac maturation marker Cx-43 and improved cellular alignment. Reproduced with permission [153]. Copyright 2018, American Chemical Society. D) Alginate hydrogel functionalized with RGD and HBP peptides shows increasing Cx-43 presence over the course of 35 days. Reproduced with permission [156]. Copyright 2019, Wiley-VCH GmbH.