They also showed that the gel can support growth of normal heart muscle tissue. When they added human cells that had been reprogrammed to become heart muscle cells into the gel, they were able to grow them in a dish for three weeks and the cells started to spontaneously beat.
In order to prove that this technology could work in a living heart, the team injected the gel with a fluorescent tag into the hearts of healthy mice. The fluorescent tag revealed that the gel remained in the heart for two weeks. Echocardiograms (ultrasounds of the heart) and electrocardiograms (ECGs, which measure the electrical activity of the heart) confirmed that the injection is safe for the heart.
The researchers now plan to trial this treatment in mice straight after a heart attack, to see whether the heart cells can develop new muscle tissue and help restore the heart’s ability to pump efficiently.
The gel is made of chains of amino acids called peptides, the building blocks of proteins. The bonds between the peptides mean that the gel can exist in different states. When it’s under stress the peptides disassemble and behave like a liquid, making it ideal for injecting. When the stress is removed the peptides re-assemble almost immediately and behave like a solid, holding the cells in place as they graft onto the heart.
Professor James Leiper, Associate Medical Director at the British Heart Foundation, said: “We’ve come so far in our ability to treat heart attacks and today more people than ever survive. However, this also means that more people are surviving with damaged hearts and are at risk of developing heart failure.
“This new injectable technology harnesses the natural properties of peptides to potentially solve one of the problems that has hindered this type of therapy for years. If the benefits are replicated in further research and then in patients, these gels could become a significant component of future treatments to repair the damage caused by heart attacks.”
‘,
‘window.fbAsyncInit = function() {‘,
‘FB.init({‘,
‘appId:’216372371876365′,’,
‘xfbml:true,’,
‘version: ‘v2.6”,
‘});’
];
ppLoadLater.placeholderFBSDK.push(‘};’);
var ppFacebookSDK = [
‘(function(d, s, id) {‘,
‘var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];’,
‘if (d.getElementById(id)) return;’,
‘js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;’,
‘js.src = “https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js”;’,
‘fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);’,
‘}(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));’
];
ppLoadLater.placeholderFBSDK = ppLoadLater.placeholderFBSDK.concat(ppFacebookSDK);
ppLoadLater.placeholderFBSDK.push(”);
ppLoadLater.placeholderFBSDK = ppLoadLater.placeholderFBSDK.join(“n”);
