Researchers uncover stem cell-activated mechanisms of healing after heart attacks

Researchers have uncovered stem cell-activated mechanisms of healing after a heart attack. Stem cells restored cardiac muscle back to its condition before the heart attack, in turn providing a blueprint of how they may work.

The study by Mayo Clinic researchers which got published in NPJ Regenerative Medicine finds that human cardiopoietic cells zero in on damaged proteins to reverse complex changes caused by a heart attack. Cardiopoietic cells are derived from adult stem cell sources of bone marrow.

"The extent of change caused by a heart attack is too great for the heart to repair itself or to prevent further damage from occurring. Notably, however, cardiopoietic stem cell therapy reversed, either fully or partially, two-thirds of these disease-induced changes, such that 85% of all cellular functional categories affected by disease responded favourably to treatment," says Andre Terzic, M.D., Ph.D., director of Mayo Clinic's Center for Regenerative Medicine. Dr Terzic is the senior author of the study.

"The actual mode of action of stem cells in repairing a diseased organ has until now been poorly understood, limiting adoption in clinical care. This study sheds light on the most intimate, yet comprehensive, regenerative mechanisms paving a road map for responsible and increasingly informed stem cell application," Dr Terzic added.

"The response of the diseased heart to cardiopoietic stem cell treatment revealed development and growth of new blood vessels, along with new heart tissue," adds Kent Arrell, Ph.D., a Mayo Clinic cardiovascular researcher and first author of the study.

Initially carried on a mouse model, the promising therapy approach is now being tested in advanced clinical trials in heart patients.