# OptoDyCE: Automated System for High-Throughput All-Optical Dynamic Cardiac Electrophysiology

## TL;DR

OptoDyCE is a high-throughput system using light to study heart cell electrophysiology, enabling fast and detailed drug testing.

## Contribution

OptoDyCE introduces a fully automated, all-optical system for dynamic cardiac electrophysiology at high throughput.

## Key findings

- OptoDyCE enables testing of over 600 multicellular samples or compounds per hour.
- The system provides high-content data on drug effects over time, space, and doses.
- Optical actuation is validated using optogenetic drivers in rat and human cardiomyocytes.

## Abstract

The improvement of preclinical cardiotoxicity testing, the discovery of new ion-channel-targeted drugs, and the phenotyping and use of stem-cell-derived cardiomyocytes and other biologics all necessitate high-throughput (HT), cellular-level electrophysiological interrogation tools. Optical techniques for actuation and sensing provide instant parallelism, enabling contactless dynamic HT testing of cells and small-tissue constructs, not affordable by other means. Here, we consider, computationally and experimentally, the limits of all-optical electrophysiology when applied to drug testing, then implement and validate OptoDyCE, a fully automated system for all-optical cardiac electrophysiology. We validate optical actuation by virally introducing optogenetic drivers in (rat and human) cardiomyocytes or through the modular use of dedicated light-sensitive somatic “spark” cells. We show that this automated all-optical approach provides high-throughput means of cellular interrogation, i.e. allows for dynamic testing of >600 multicellular samples or compounds per hour, and yields high-content information about the action of a drug over time, space and doses.