It’s been known for a decade that when infant mice’s hearts are damaged, they can regenerate new heart tissue in the first seven days of life.
Now researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center have found their secret. It could be used to turn sick old human hearts young and healthy again.
The group first found a protein called Meis1, which prevents heart cells from dividing. In test mice, the researchers deleted the gene that makes the protein and found that damaged hearts could regenerate new tissue for longer than a week – but not much longer.
The team then found that a protein called Hoxb13 ferries Meis1 into cells. When the genes for both proteins were deleted from the genes of mice who then suffered induced heart attacks, their hearts quickly returned to near-normal health and resembled the hearts of young mice who were not yet fully adult.
Most recently, the scientists discovered another protein called calcineurin that controls both Hoxb13 and Meis1. Blocking the creation of that protein makes the heart-healing effects last even longer.
TRENDPOST: Because calcineurin has been implicated in rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes, there already are drugs on the market that work against it. The Texas researchers are suggesting that clinical trials of these drugs, or variations of them, be tested for their effects on damaged hearts.
