Skin cells turned into heart, brain cells using drugs

Scientists, including one of Indian-origin, have transformed skin cells into heart and brain cells using a cocktail of chemicals, a breakthrough that may help regenerate lost or damaged cells in future with pharmaceutical drugs.
In two studies, scientists, led by Sheng Ding from Gladstone Institutes in the US, used chemical combination to gradually coax skin cells to change into organ-specific stem cell-like cells and, ultimately, into heart or brain cells.
"This method brings us closer to being able to generate new cells at the site of injury in patients," said Ding.
"Our hope is to one day treat diseases like heart failure or Parkinson's disease with drugs that help the heart and brain regenerate damaged areas from their own existing tissue cells.

"This process is much closer to the natural regeneration that happens in animals like newts and salamanders, which has long fascinated us," Ding said.
Adult hearts have a very limited ability to generate new cells, so scientists have searched for a way to replace cells lost after a heart attack, such as transplanting adult heart cells or stem cells into the damaged heart.

However, these efforts have been largely ineffective, as most transplanted adult cells do not survive or integrate properly into the heart, and few stem cells can be coaxed into becoming heart cells.
An alternative approach pioneered by Deepak Srivastava, director of cardiovascular and stem cell research at Gladstone, used genes to convert scar-forming cells in the heart of animals into new muscle that improved the function of the heart.

A chemical reprogramming approach to do the same may offer an easier way to provide the cues that induce heart muscle to regenerate locally.
The researchers used a cocktail of nine chemicals to change human skin cells into beating heart cells.
They found the best combination of chemicals to begin the process by changing the cells into a state resembling multi-potent stem cells, which can turn into many different types of cells in a particular organ.
A second cocktail of chemicals and growth factors helped transition the cells to become heart muscle cells.
With this method, more than 97 per cent of the cells began beating, a characteristic of fully developed, healthy heart cells.

The cells also responded appropriately to hormones, and molecularly, they resembled heart muscle cells, not skin.
When the cells were transplanted into a mouse heart early in the process, they developed into healthy-looking heart muscle cells within the organ, researchers said.
"The ultimate goal in treating heart failure is a robust, reliable way for the heart to create new muscle cells," said Srivastava.
"Reprogramming a patient's own cells could provide the safest and most efficient way to regenerate dying or diseased heart muscle," he said.