Metabolism switch signals end for healing hearts

Metabolism switch signals end for healing hearts
Dr James Hudson. Credit: University of Queensland

Researchers have identified the process that shuts down the human heart's ability to heal itself, and are now searching for a drug to reverse it.

University of Queensland's Dr James Hudson and Murdoch Children's Research Institute researcher Dr Enzo Porrello have shown a metabolic pathway governs the loss of the heart's proliferative capacity.

"A switch in a newborn's metabolism means this ability to regenerate heart tissue disappears, usually within a week," Dr Hudson said.

"Now we have identified the process that causes this to occur, we believe there could be an opportunity to reactivate regeneration in adult hearts."

The research also involved collaborators from AstraZeneca in Sweden, the University of Sydney and the University of Melbourne.

Dr Hudson's team is now working with a company to identify drugs that could re-activate the heart's ability to self-repair.

"That would mean a heart could repair muscle damage caused from a attack, and recover its full capacity to pump blood around the body," Dr Hudson said.

The research was performed in engineered tissues grown from stem cells in the Cardiac Regeneration Laboratory at UQ's School of Biomedical Sciences.

Credit: University of Queensland

It follows a study which mapped in mouse hearts.

"We undertook profiling to separate the different cell populations and pathways, in hearts with regeneration capacity and those without," Dr Hudson said.

"This highlighted the we focused on in our latest research."

About 54,000 Australians suffer a each year, with an average of about 23 deaths every day.

The research was published in PNAS and Circulation.

More information: Gregory A. Quaife-Ryan et al. Multicellular Transcriptional Analysis of Mammalian Heart Regeneration, Circulation (2017). DOI: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.117.028252

Richard J. Mills et al. Functional screening in human cardiac organoids reveals a metabolic mechanism for cardiomyocyte cell cycle arrest, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2017). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1707316114

Citation: Metabolism switch signals end for healing hearts (2017, September 19) retrieved 28 March 2024 from https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-09-metabolism-hearts.html
This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.

Explore further

Scientists create 'beating' human heart muscle for cardiac research

141 shares

Feedback to editors