The heart, as we well know, is a fantastic organ that does an incredible job but has a flaw: it doesn't know how to repair itself very well. After heart attacks and heart disease, scars form which make the heart less elastic and less able to pump blood.
Now a group of researchers from the dukeuniversity discovered how to turn scar tissue into healthy tissue in the hearts of mice, inspired by the way young hearts repair themselves.
A heart without scars
Scientists have long sought solutions to prevent and reduce the severity of cardiac events, such as heart attacks, which affect millions of people around the world. Much research has focused on prevention, but recently the focus has shifted to healing damaged hearts and, in particular, the scars that form after a heart attack.
Scarring makes heart tissue stiffer, affecting the heart's ability to pump blood.
An Australian study this year found that increasing elastin, a protein responsible for tissue elasticity, reduced scar formation in rat hearts. And with the reduction of the scars, heart function returned to almost normal levels.
Regenerating hearts after heart attacks: the role of fibroblasts
Duke researchers, supervised by Conrad Hodgkinson, conducted an investigation into the role of fibroblasts, fundamental cells in the formation of connective and scar tissue. The idea was to use cell reprogramming, an RNA-based technique, to transform damaged fibroblasts into functioning heart muscle after heart attacks. An approach also studied for heart repair, recovery of motor function in stroke patients and wound healing.
The problem? Adult fibroblasts in mice were resistant to reprogramming, unlike juvenile ones: the oxygen sensor protein Epas1 was in the dock. By blocking this protein, the adult cells successfully transformed.
Not just heart
The researchers believe that their findings may also have implications in other areas of medicine, such as the regeneration of neurons in the brain and the reversibility of skin scarring in some dermatological conditions. Cellular reprogramming, they say, may become the main method of reversing the effects of aging on some cells.
The study was published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. I link it to you here.
