Channel NewsAsia – AFP, 13 Aug 2013
Scientists
grow human heart tissue
|
A team from
the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, used induced pluripotent stem (iPS)
cells generated from human skin cells to create precursor heart cells called
MCPs.
iPS cells
are mature human cells "reprogrammed" into a versatile, primitive
state from which they can be prompted to develop into any kind of cell of the
body.
The
primitive heart cells created in this way were attached to a mouse heart
"scaffold" from which the researchers had removed all mouse heart
cells, they wrote in the journal Nature Communications.
The
scaffold is a network of non-living tissue composed of proteins and
carbohydrates to which cells adhere and grow on.
Placed on
the 3D scaffold, the precursor cells grew and developed into heart muscle, and
after 20 days of blood supply the reconstructed mouse organ "began
contracting again at the rate of 40 to 50 beats per minute," said a
University of Pittsburgh statement.
"It is
still far from making a whole human heart," added senior researcher Lei
Yang.
Ways have
to be found to make the heart contract strongly enough to pump blood
effectively and to rebuild the heart's electrical conduction system.
"However,
we provide a novel resource of cells -- iPS cell-derived MCPs -- for future
heart tissue engineering," Yang told AFP by email.
"We
hope our study would be used in the future to replace a piece of tissue damaged
by a heart attack, or perhaps an entire organ, in patients with heart
disease."
According
to the World Health Organisation, an estimated 17 million people die of
cardiovascular ailments every year, most of them from heart disease.
Due to a
shortage of donor organs, "end-stage heart failure is irreversible",
said the study.
More than
half of patients with heart disease do not benefit from drugs.
"Heart
tissue engineering holds a great promise... based on the reconstruction of
patient-specific cardiac muscle," the researchers wrote.
Last month,
scientists in Japan said they had grown functional human liver tissue from stem
cells in a similar process.
Creating
lab-grown tissue to replenish organs damaged by accident or disease is a Holy
Grail for the pioneering field of stem cell research.
Until a few
years ago, when iPS cells were created, the only way to obtain stem cells was
to harvest them from human embryos.
This was
controversial because it required the destruction of the embryo, a process to
which religious conservatives and others object.
- AFP/nd
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