Fight Aging! Newsletter, October 9th 2017

In this study, we investigated the Hippo pathway, which is known from my lab's previous studies to prevent adult heart muscle cell proliferation and regeneration. When patients are in heart failure there is an increase in the activity of the Hippo pathway. This led us to think that if we could turn Hippo off, then we might be able to induce improvement in heart function." "We designed a mouse model to mimic the human condition of advanced heart failure. Once we reproduced a severe stage of injury in the mouse heart, we inhibited the Hippo pathway. After six weeks we observed that the injured hearts had recovered their pumping function to the level of the control, healthy hearts." The researchers think the effect of turning Hippo off is two-fold. On one side, it induces heart muscle cells to proliferate and survive in the injured heart, and on the other side, it induces an alteration of the fibrosis. Further studies are going to be needed to elucidate the changes observed in fibrosis. Hippo pathway deficiency reverses systolic heart failure after infarction Mammalian organs vary widely in regenerative capacity. Poorly regenerative organs such as the heart are particularly vulnerable to organ failure. Once established, heart failure commonly results in mortality. The Hippo pathway, a kinase cascade that prevents adult cardiomyocyte proliferation and regeneration, is upregulated in human heart failure. Here we show that deletion of the Hippo pathway comp...
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