New ways to fix damaged hearts were published on Thursday, one from transforming structural heart cells into beating cells and the second by restoring a primordial ability to regenerate lost tissue.
The two approaches represent huge strides forward in the field of regenerative medicine but both require a lot more investigation before they can be attempted on humans.
The two studies also suggest it may be possible to mend broken organs inside the body of a patient, rather than needing to use transplants or artificial devices.
A team based at the University of California’s Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease created beating heart cells from more ordinary cells called fibroblasts in one of the studies.
It is known by those involved in stem cell research how to reprogram such ordinary cells by adding three or four genes to revert them to an embryonic-like state. The next step is to fine-tune such induced pluripotent stem cells or iPS cells and teams are working on it.
Dr. Masaki Ieda and colleagues discovered genes that, in a developing embryo, change an immature cell into a beating heart cell or cardiomyocyte, which takes this approach a stage further.
“Scientists have tried for 20 years to convert non muscle cells into heart muscle”, Ieda, now based at the Keio University School of Medicine in Japan, stated. “but it turns out we just needed the right combination of genes at the right dose”.
Ieda’s team reported in journal Cell the transformed cells converted into beating heart cells within one day after being planted into live mice.
