Researchers discover an unexpected regulator of heart repair

FINDINGSA study using mice by scientists atthe  Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA reveals that cardiac muscle cells play a pivotal role in determining how the heart heals following a heart attack.  The findings challenge a longstanding paradigm about heart repair and identify a protein that could serve as a target for drugs to treat or prevent heart failure.BACKGROUNDHeart attack is the leading cause of heart failure, which kills more than 600,000 people in the U.S. each year.  An optimal repair response is critical for minimizing the amount of scarring after a heart attack because, once formed, heart scar tissue remains for life and reduces the heart’s ability to pump blood. This adds strain to the remaining heart muscle which, over time, can lead to the development o f heart failure.Heart muscle tissue is made up of cardiac muscle cells, which are responsible for the heart ’s ability to pump blood. Because these cells have a very limited ability to self-replicate, they are unable to generate sufficient cardiac muscle cells to replace the tissue that is damaged in a heart attack. Instead, the heart produces scar tissue to preserve its structural integrity. It had bee n thought that cardiac muscle cells play a minimal role in scarring and the heart’s repair process.METHODThe researchers studied tissue from the hearts of healthy mice and the hearts of mice that were in the first three weeks of recovery from heart attac...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news