Schematic overview of the hypothesis that recombinant human collagen-based microspheres mitigate the conduction slowing induced by pASC.

<p>From previous work we know that rASC and hASC induce conduction slowing through direct-electrotonic-coupling (<b>1</b>) and that pASC paracrine factors alone can induce conduction slowing in NRVM monolayers (<b>2</b>). We hypothesize that the microspheres will buffer the pASC paracrine factors, and mitigate the conduction slowing (<b>3</b>). The mitigating effect can also be achieved when the pASC are loaded onto the microspheres (<b>4</b>). When rASC or hASC are loaded onto the microspheres conduction slowing will still occur as these cells induce conduction slowing through direct-electrotonic-coupling(<b>5</b>). Abbreviations: hASC: human adipose tissue-derived stromal cells, NRVM; neonatal rat ventricular myocytes, pASC: porcine adipose tissue-derived stromal cells, and rASC: rat adipose tissue-derived stromal cells.