A simple protein patch could heal damage caused by heart attacks

Early work, which was carried out on pigs and mice show that protein infused patch can encourage the growth of new cells and reduce scarring.

Heart muscle regeneration and scarring are two major issues that current treatments for heart attacks do not address, said Ruiz-Lozano.

There is now no viable treatment for repairing damage to heart tissues following a myocardial infarction, leaving as many as 735,000 Americans with no option but to live with the damage. Depending on the severity, such damage may lead to further complications, including arrhythmias – abnormal heart rhythms – and heart failure. The patch loaded with the specific protein helps the heart function better and increases the overall survival rate after a cardiac arrest, as found by the researchers in mice and pigs.

For the study, Professor Pilar Ruiz-Lozano looked toward the past studies of zebrafish, a species that can regenerate its own heart cells with a special layer of cells in the heart called the epicardium. As a result of which, a number of patients progressively lose heart function, and suffer from long-term disability and ultimately dies. With time, the collagen materials will get absorbed into the organ. The researchers imagine that the elasticity of the fabric, which resembles that of the fetal coronary heart, is essential to offering a hospitable surroundings for muscle regrowth. “Many were so sick prior to getting the patch that they would have been candidates for heart transplantation”.

Human heart tissue has minimal ability to regenerate after an injury.

“We are really excited about the prospect of bringing this technology to the clinic”, said Mark Mercola, professor of Bioengineering at UC San Diego and professor in the Development, Aging, and Regeneration Program at SBP. Now, the researchers hope that the procedure could be used to treat human suffered heart attack. Thanks to the patch, future treatment will be changed, leading to lower doses of medication and to a reduction of lasting damage after an initial heart attack.

Scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine and their colleagues from the University of California-San Diego have delivered a protein to hearts damaged by heart attacks that helps injured tissue regenerate.

For their research, the scientists started out with the epicardial cells and showed that they stimulated existing heart muscle cells, or cardiomyocytes, to replicate.

Because the patches are made of acellular collagen, meaning they contain no cells, recipients do not need immunosuppressive drugs to avoid rejection.