More than half of all heart failure patients die within 5 to 6 years.
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In the trial, a team of international researchers soaked a patch made of collagen in a protein called Fstl1 and stitched it onto the hearts of each of the animals that had suffered heart attacks.
New heart muscle cells (green with yellow nuclei) grow in the infarcted region of a mouse heart treated by the patch loaded with FSTL1.
Vast majority of people survive a heart attack instantly, but the extensive damage to the muscle and blemishing that consequences takes a toll which ultimately leads to a heart failure in the upcoming days.
“Treatments don’t deal with this fundamental problem – and consequently many patients progressively lose heart function, leading to long-term disability and eventually death”, said Dr. Pilar Ruiz-Lozano, a professor at Stanford University, in a press release.
This research was funded by National Institutes of Health (grants R01HL065484, R01HL086879, R01HL113601, R01HL108176, P01HL098053, RO1HL116591, P30AR061303 and P30CA030199), the California Institute for Regenerative Medicineand Stanford Bio-X. With time, the collagen materials will get absorbed into the organ. The researchers imagine that the elasticity of the fabric, which resembles that of the fetal coronary heart, is essential to offering a hospitable surroundings for muscle regrowth.
Scientists are now saying they have just been able to reverse heart attack damage by using a “missing” protein that can kick-start the heart to repairing the cardiac muscle.
By analyzing the epicardial cells of healthy mammalian hearts, the team found that these cells triggered replication of cardiomyocytes.
Previous heart regeneration studies in zebrafish have shown that the epicardium is one of the driving factors for healing a damaged heart, Ruiz-Lozano said.
The next step, of course, is to figure out if similar things can be done with human hearts. He adds, “It’s commercially viable, clinically attractive and you don’t need immunosuppressive drugs”. New blood vessels regenerated there as well.
A Stanford University professor said that many of the animals had been very sick prior to having the patch implanted and would have been good candidates to have heart transplants.
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Stanford has a patent on the patch, and Ruiz-Lozano is chief scientific officer at Epikabio Inc., which has an unique choice to license this expertise. The patch showed progressive conclusions when it was tested on animal hearts and displayed nearly normal function within weeks.
