Genes boost could help heart attack victims recover naturally

Scarring in damaged hearts can be reversed by the injection of three vital genes, a ground-breaking study has shown.
By The Newsroom
Published 2nd Apr 2012, 07:00 BST

The research holds out the hope of helping heart attack patients recover naturally.

Scientists used a virus to carry the genes directly into the scar tissue of mice that had suffered heart attacks. Tests showed that the fibroblast cells responsible for scarring began to transform into beating heart cells. Evidence suggests the same technique could be used to combat scarring in other parts of the body.

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It might then be possible to regenerate nerve cells in patients with spinal cord injuries, and pancreatic cells in diabetics, say the scientists.

One of the holy grails of heart research has been to repair heart attack damage by replacing lost cardiomyocytes.

Implanted stem cells offer a potential solution, but it is hard to get them to integrate with neighbouring heart cells. The latest work, presented at the Frontiers in CardioVascular Biology meeting at Imperial College London, emerged from research on the genetic factors that drive heart development in embryos.

A team led by Dr Deepak Srivastava, director of the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases in San Francisco, US, identified three key genes, Gata4, Mef2c and Tbx5, which were able to convert fibroblasts taken from the hearts of adult mice into cardiomyocytes.