TABLE 2.

Advantages and disadvantages of the selected cardiac tissue models and their possible applications

Model	Advantages	Disadvantages	Application
Organoids	Robust; high throughput	Difficult to control, many cardiac lineages, low perfusability; limited maturity and pharmaceutical responses; no organotypic behavior	Screening for cardiotoxicity in early drug development phases
Muscular thin films (MTFs)	Organized structures, robust, high‐throughput; well‐developed and real‐time response measurement system	Medium‐to‐low maturity; limited tissue organization; limited possibility for ECM development	Screening of drug effects and cardiotoxicity
Cell sheets	Well established and standardized manufacturing procedures; unlimited tissue source; easy to handle in the laboratory	Difficult for application for inexperienced medical staff; rely on proper homing and adhesion; limited complexity; use limited to the size of the tissue injury; relatively low throughput	Regenerative medicine; heart infarction treatment
Engineered heart tissue (EHT)	Advanced maturation due to the mechanical stimulation in 3D environment; ECM allows for modeling of the larger than cellular scale disease effects; reproduces physiological features and complicated structural mechanisms of the heart tissue; response to the stimuli similar to mature human heart tissue; possibility to employ several cell types	Complicated culture system; difficult to handle and measure (requires specific equipment); hard to standardize; low throughput	Disease modeling; drug screening in preclinical phases; regenerative medicine (limited use)
Heart‐on‐a‐chip	Higher CM maturity; direct experimental access to the cell/tissue; controlled environment for cell development; medium–high throughput; automated cultures	Complicated system requiring installation of the specific equipment and supply of additional gases and media; relatively low flexibility (requires changes in chip design, specific expertize, and equipment). High chip prices	Drug screening for functionality and toxicity; studies of paracrine effect of the cells (combined media systems)
De‐/Recellularized heart	Mimic the properties of native heart matrix, maintain cell–cell contact and stiffness, mechanical anisotropy	Difficult to reproduce, hard to recellularize in terms of cells compartmentalization; species/personal differences; require access to the source of human heart tissues in good shape—limits the accessibility of the technique (the only model to still have this limit); currently low physiological functionality; lowest throughput	Heart transplantation procedures, replacement of the viable human heart organs
In vivo mouse heart model	Possibility to study hormonal regulation and organ‐to‐organ interactions in the whole organism	Difference in physiology (ex. Action potential duration, heat rate), differences in ion channels expression (ex.)	Basic research, preclinical studies (currently major model)