Derivation of cardiomyocyte-propelled motile aggregates from stem cells

Robotics draws inspiration from biology, particularly animal locomotion based on muscle-driven contractions. While traditional engineering assembles components sequentially, locomotive animals are built via self-organized developmental programs. Stem cells, under the right conditions, can mimic these processes in vitro, offering a pathway to develop muscle-propelled biobots in a self-organized building process. Here, we demonstrate that existent cardiogenic gastruloid protocols can produce motile aggregates from mouse embryonic stem cells, although with very limited efficiency. We then identify a novel protocol that yields contractile aggregates with higher frequency and larger contractile areas. In this novel protocol, mesendoderm induction using TGF-beta ligands is followed by cardiogenic induction with FGFs and VEGF. Synthetic organizers further control contraction localization. Aggregates developed via this protocol show enhanced motility, marking a step forward towards building motile cardiobots from self-organized biological material. This strategy opens new possibilities for designing autonomous biobots and studying the evolution of muscle-powered movement of multicellular organisms and cardiovascular development.

• Publication year

  2025

• Venue

  bioRxiv

• Publication date

  2025-07-09

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine, Engineering

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1101/2025.07.09.663178PMID 40672161PMCID 12265712
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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