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A breakthrough that could help regenerate the heart muscle

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Regenerate the heart muscle

A remarkable discovery in heart research was made by scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB in Stuttgart: they found the surface markers of cardiovascular functional living progenitor cells (CPCs). This discovery is extremely important for heart research because it demonstrates that the cardiovascular progenitor cells (CPCs) can be derived from induced pluripotent stem cells, (iPS) cells. Investigation results were recently published in the journal PLoS ONE.

Progenitor cells are cells that are normally found only in the fetus and have the ability to develop into all cell types of the heart: cardiomyocytes, etc. The goal of the study  led by Prof. Dr. Katja Schenke-by Layland from the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB in Stuttgart, was to produce functional cardiomyocytes from progenitor cells. Cardiomyocytes are heart muscle cells that play an essential role in contraction. Myocardial infarction leads to loss of functional cardiomyocytes. As a result of a blockage of a coronary artery, myocardium served by that artery will not be supplied with oxygen anymore, thus it will die. A frequent consequence of patients who suffer a heart attack is heart failure, which means decreased ability of the heart contraction. Myocardial regeneration by stem cells was studied by researchers for a long time and many experiments have been tried over time.

heart muscle

Heart muscle

Of CPCs, cardiomyocytes, smooth muscle cells and endothelial cells develop during embryonic development. Although there were known many things about these cells, the researchers could not use them for therapeutic purposes because  it was difficult to identify the markers that could help isolate them as long as those markers were  found at the nuclear level (Islet1 or Nkx2.5). But a team of researchers Katja Schenke-Layland of Professor from the Fraunhofer IGB in Stuttgart, Prof. Dr. Robb MacLellan and Dr. Ali Nsair of the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), were able to identify two surface markers: Flt1 ( VEGFR1) and Flt4 (VEGFR3). These surface markers were identified using microarray gene expression profiling. The discovery of these markers is very important because it helps scientists to isolate clinically relevant cardiovascular progenitor cells and use them for therapeutic purposes.

The researchers then wanted to derive the cells from induced-pluripotent cells stem (iPS) cells using a technique discovered by a Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka, Nobel laureate for Medicine in 2012. By manipulating the genes responsible for of the state of the cells, scientists were able to reprogram them into embryo cells (induced pluripotent stem cells), that is cells that can developed in all cells of the body.

Then the researchers investigated this finding in mouse model. “When we cultured the isolated mouse CPCs then in vitro, they actually developed “ as well as the embryonic stem cell-derived progenitor cells “ into endothelial cells, smooth muscle cells and more interestingly into functional heart muscle cells.”Schenke-Layland said.
The experiment is extremely valuable in heart research because it can potentially regenerate heart muscle and because it  is a step forward in the treatment of heart disease.