Key messages
This blinded study investigated the clinically relevant long-term effects (up to 2 months) of empagliflozin on cardiomyocyte excitation-contraction (EC)-coupling. Human cardiomyocytes derived from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC-CM) were used to study a human model including a high repetition number of experiments. Empagliflozin has neutral effects on cardiomyocyte Ca2+ transients, sarcoplasmic Ca2+ load, and diastolic sarcoplasmic Ca2+ leak. In patch-clamp experiments, empagliflozin did not change the action potential. Next-generation RNA sequencing, mapped transcriptome profiles, and Western blots of iPSC-CM untreated and treated with empagliflozin showed no differentially expressed EC-coupling candidates.
