Researchers in the United States have developed a new experimental technology that can repair and also regenerate heart muscle cells after a heart attack.
The researchers at the University of Houston in Texas in a recent study said the new technology could become a game-changer in saving lives of heart attack patients.
They disclosed that the technology has only been tested on mice.
They, however, noted that it could be a life-saving treatment for heart attack sufferers if it produces the same results in humans.
The technology, the researchers said, uses synthetic messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) to send DNA sequences that the body will use to build the proteins that can revive cell replication process as well as replace dead cells in the heart with new ones.
According to the findings from the study already published in the Journal of Cardiovascular Aging, the combination of using mmRNA encoding SRF153 and YAP-5SA could become a powerful clinical strategy for treating human heart disease.
A Professor at the Department of Biology and Biochemistry at the University of Houston, who was part of the study, Dr. Robert Schwartz said, “No one has been able to do this to this extent and we think it could become a possible treatment for humans.”
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A transcription factor protein known as the Serum response factor is essential for cell replication and when it interacts with other cofactors such as NKX2-5 and GATA4, can give cardiac-specific gene activity, the researchers said.
Also, the mutant YAP-5SA affects cardiomyocyte proliferation and growth which means organ growth and replication.
To test their theory, the researchers used the mRNAs technology to conduct an experimental treatment by administering a mutated version of SRF known as Stemin, together with YAP-5SA to a living mice cardiomyocyte cell line.
The study said, “We hypothesised that disruption of interactions of SRF with NKX2-5 and GATA4 would lead to dedifferentiation of cardiomyocytes to a proliferative stem cell state and complement YAP-5SA to generate undifferentiated cardiomyocytes in a more primitive replicative state.”
The in vivo study which comprised living rats that had suffered a mouse heart attack in a separate study revealed that 24 hours after injecting Stemin and YAP5SA into the left ventricles or the mice, over a 15-fold increase in cardiomyocyte nuclei was detected.
Dr. Schwartz said, “When both transcription factors were injected into infarcted adult mouse hearts, the results were stunning.
“The lab found cardiac myocytes multiplied quickly within a day, while hearts over the next month were repaired to near normal cardiac pumping function with little scarring.”
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