Despite its importance, the heart is one of the few tissues in the human body that cannot repair injuries very well – or at least, that was what was assumed for a long time. Scientists have now managed to observe heart muscle cells regenerating freely after a myocardial infarction.
When something impedes blood flow, the lack of oxygen kills heart cells. The organ can repair itself with scar tissue, but this fibrous, inelastic tissue does not beat, making the heart less efficient.
These irregularities may eventually lead to new heart attacks and heart failure in the future.
Mice appear to be lucky enough to have hearts capable of at least partially regenerating themselves: in a 2023 published in the journal Natureit was observed that their cardiomyocytes (heart muscle cells) divide again after a heart attack.
As human heart cells They are not nearly as agile after an injury.
A new one, recently published in the magazine Circulation Researchhowever, it shows that the human heart tissue can, in fact, regenerate itself after a heart attack.
“Our investigation shows that, although the heart is scarred after a heart attack, produces new muscle cellswhich opens up new possibilities”, he says Robert Humecardiologist at the University of Sydney and first author of the study, cited by .
“While this new discovery of muscle cell growth is exciting, not enough to prevent the devastating effects of a heart attack”, notes Hume.
“That’s why, Over time, we hope to develop therapies that can amplify the heart’s natural ability to produce new cells and regenerate the heart after a heart attack”, adds the researcher.
Previous research looking at patients after heart surgery had already suggested the potential of cardiac muscle cells to regenerate after an injury.
In the new study, Hume and his colleagues examined living human heart tissue from a complete heart from a declared brain-dead donor, as well as samples taken from patients during bypass surgery.
The team ssequenced the RNA (DNA transcripts used to produce proteins) and studied proteins and tissue metabolism in detail.
Robert Hume / University of Sydney
Pink sections indicate replicating human heart cells
“We characterized the blood-deprived environment that promoted this intrinsic cell division of cardiomyocytes, identifying transcripts, proteins and metabolites which have already been shown to induce cell division in studies with rodents”, write the study authors in the article describing the work.
The hope is that these discoveries can lead to new therapies regenerative strategies that will one day allow us to combat the main cause of death in the world.
