Stimulatrix: An open-source automated platform for high-throughput functional characterization of engineered contractile tissues
- 1ETH Zurich
Abstract
Engineered cardiac and skeletal muscle tissues suspended between flexible posts support disease modeling and pharmacology, yet their stimulation, longitudinal imaging and quantitative analysis often remain fragmented and labor-intensive. Here we present Stimulatrix, an open-source platform integrating automated video acquisition within a cell culture incubator, synchronized electrical stimulation and deep learning for longitudinal assessment of contractile tissues in multiwell plates. The platform quantifies tissue compaction, force generation and contraction kinetics with optional cloud processing reducing dependence on local GPU hardware. We demonstrate the workflow in cardiac tissues comprising human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes and cardiac fibroblasts, and in primary human skeletal muscle constructs. Force and kinetic measurements were benchmarked against manual annotations. Longitudinal profiling resolved responses to matrix composition and pacing regimens and tracked doxorubicin-associated loss of cardiac contractile force. Stimulatrix provides an accessible workflow for automated functional phenotyping of engineered muscle tissues.
Related
- A high-throughput functional 3D droplet microfluidic platform for function-to-transcriptome profiling identifies candidate lncRNAs associated with engineered NK cell function
- Developing analysis algorithm for engineered skeletal muscle contractile function based on a microphysiological system
- Prime editing enables high-throughput identification and characterization of selective MutSβ inhibitors
- FiberPro 1.0: Multiagent AI-Guided Design for High-Throughput Production and Conformal Deposition of Functional Protein Micro/Nanofibers
- CardioShift: Resolving cell-to-cell functional heterogeneity in hiPSC-derived cardiomyocytes from high-throughput single-cell imaging
BibTeX
@misc{winkelbauer2026stimulatrix,
title = {{Stimulatrix: An open-source automated platform for high-throughput functional characterization of engineered contractile tissues}},
author = {M. Winkelbauer and J. Bast and E. S. Casalino and M. Bulatova and M. Generali and S. Mohammed and G. D'Hulst and T. Laumonier and F. Paneni and K. De Bock and P. Katiyar and O. Bar-Nur and P. Chansoria},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.64898/2026.09.24.750079},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.24.750079v1},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Stimulatrix: An open-source automated platform for high-throughput functional characterization of engineered contractile tissues
AU - M. Winkelbauer
AU - J. Bast
AU - E. S. Casalino
AU - M. Bulatova
AU - M. Generali
AU - S. Mohammed
AU - G. D'Hulst
AU - T. Laumonier
AU - F. Paneni
AU - K. De Bock
AU - P. Katiyar
AU - O. Bar-Nur
AU - P. Chansoria
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/24
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.09.24.750079
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.24.750079v1
AB - Engineered cardiac and skeletal muscle tissues suspended between flexible posts support disease modeling and pharmacology, yet their stimulation, longitudinal imaging and quantitative analysis often remain fragmented and labor-intensive. Here we present Stimulatrix, an open-source platform integrating automated video acquisition within a cell culture incubator, synchronized electrical stimulation and deep learning for longitudinal assessment of contractile tissues in multiwell plates. The platform quantifies tissue compaction, force generation and contraction kinetics with optional cloud processing reducing dependence on local GPU hardware. We demonstrate the workflow in cardiac tissues comprising human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes and cardiac fibroblasts, and in primary human skeletal muscle constructs. Force and kinetic measurements were benchmarked against manual annotations. Longitudinal profiling resolved responses to matrix composition and pacing regimens and tracked doxorubicin-associated loss of cardiac contractile force. Stimulatrix provides an accessible workflow for automated functional phenotyping of engineered muscle tissues.
ER -