CARTOX™ Optical Mapping
CARTOX™ represents the next generation in cardiotoxicity screening, capturing large quantities of data quickly and efficiently. With its ability to quantify APD, CaTD, Triangulation and several other key electrophysiological parameters, CARTOX allows users to collect comprehensive data sets as part of their cardiotoxicity assays. Furthermore, CARTOX is designed for use with 96-well plates, permitting simultaneous screening of multiple compounds in the same plate. Users can even select ROIs within individual wells to assay, and group multiple wells together when exporting data for use in presentations. CARTOX™ generates more data, faster than ever before. Try CARTOX today!
CARTOX™ OPTICAL MAPPING ALLOWS YOU TO VISUALIZE ARRHYTHMIA
Typically, we rely on surrogate markers to detect arrhythmia in vitro. With the CARTOX system you can visualize stable rotors when compounds result in Torsades de Pointes. This type of feedback allows the user to understand what is happening in an entire monolayer, rather than just a single point that is interacting with an electrode.
CARTOX ELECTROPHYSIOLOGY ANALYSIS TOOL SPEEDS WORKFLOWS
Previously, analysis of electrophysiology data, and especially optical mapping data has been a major bottleneck in cardiac testing workflows. Obtaining useful information from optical mapping data sets often took longer than generating the data sets. With the CARTOX Analysis Software, we have condensed days of work to minutes and automated the workflow so that a beginner can obtain useful information and beautiful figures.
CARTOX Optical Mapping Analysis software allows users to rapidly obtain key electrophysiology metrics from every well of a 96wp.
CARTOX and CELLvo Matrix Plus make up the perfect toolkit for cardiotoxicity assays
When used with hiPSC-CMs matured on CELLvo Matrix Plus, CARTOX is at its most powerful. Prior to the development of CELLvo MatrixPlus - a unique substrate that recapitulates the native niche that cells are surrounded by in vivo - cardiotoxicity screening was impaired by the immature phenotype of hiPSC-CMs cultured on commonly used substrates like Matrigel. Published in Nature Scientific Reports, hiPSC-CMs cultured on CELLvo Matrix Plus showed more biologically relevant phenotypes associated with mature human cardiomyocytes, supported by biochemical and immunohistochemical evidence (see Block et al. 2020).
As part of cardiotoxicity screenings where CARTOX technology has been used with hiPSCs cultured on Matrix Plus and Matrigel, it has been found that Matrix Plus hiPSC-CMs show higher sensitivity to proarrhythmic effects of CiPA-validated compounds than Matrigel hiPSC-CMs. The use of Matrix Plus hiPSC-CMs has even permitted more nuanced arrhythmic phenotypes to be observed with CARTOX technology than with Matrigel hiPSC-CMs. For example, whilst E-4031 treatment causes hiPSC-CMs cultured on Matrigel and Matrix Plus to both display TdP arrhytmias, only hiPSC-CMs cultured on Matrix Plus present TdP-associated slowing of conduction velocity which is thought to contribute to the maintenance of arrhythmia in vivo.
Whilst CARTOX is useful by itself, it becomes the ultimate tool when used in conjunction with Matrix Plus as part of your cardiotoxicity assays.
Combination of CARTOX with CELLvo Technologies results in robust risk stratification of compounds. Bepridil appears to be misclassified, but in this study the monolayers became quiescent when treated with high concentration Bepridil. Thus, though we did not observe arrhythmias, we would have been able to appropriately classify Bepridil as a high risk compound.