Scientists have discovered the secret of rejuvenating the heart

In a new study, researchers at the University of Virginia are looking for drugs to stimulate the regeneration of heart tissue after a heart attack. The results of this research show promising developments that could lead to new treatment options. A team led by Jeff Sasserman had previously developed a method to identify drugs that can generate new heart cells (cardiomyocytes). These cells are responsible for pumping blood.

According to Tekna Medical and Health News, in recent research, researchers analyzed five compounds out of 30 primary compounds to determine how these compounds regenerate cardiomyocytes, which can help replace damaged heart tissue. Scientists say they have gained a new understanding of how these compounds work in heart cells, which will be valuable for developing drugs to treat or reverse heart damage and heart failure.

This potentially fatal disease affects more than 5 million Americans. “After a heart attack and the formation of scar tissue, there’s usually no going back,” says Sasserman of the University of Virginia. These compounds are promising in their potential to generate new cardiomyocytes for heart regeneration. Heart failure occurs when the heart loses the ability to pump enough blood for the body’s needs, leading to weakness, fatigue, shortness of breath, fluid accumulation in the lungs, and other symptoms that reduce the quality of life of patients. This disease is irreversible and often fatal. A heart attack and other conditions that damage heart tissue can cause heart failure. Doctors cannot repair this damage because the body stops producing cardiomyocytes after birth. Sasserman and his team are eagerly looking for drugs that can restart this natural production line.

Researchers from the University of Virginia, in collaboration with scientists from the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, combined the traditional approach of examining living cells with a microscope with advanced image processing algorithms. This approach allowed them to identify 30 compounds that stimulate cardiomyocyte production in culture dishes.

Although these findings were promising, scientists needed a better understanding of the drugs’ effects; How exactly they can stimulate cardiomyocyte production. So, the UVA team selected five compounds that act on different cellular targets and set to work to find the answer.

The scientists were still determining how the compounds worked because they targeted proteins unrelated to previous studies of cardiomyocyte production. To get a broader view, the researchers examined the expression of all genes in the genome and a large set of proteins. Using machine learning, they connected the data to a network to explain the cascading effects that compounds create.

They found that the drugs work in similar ways to boost cardiomyocyte production and do so without toxicity, which is a promising sign. New insights bring scientists closer to translating their lab work into new treatments. Sasserman, a member of the Robert M. Cardiac Research Center. “Based on these results, we are now collecting data in a large-scale computational model of cardiomyocyte generation as well as testing selected compounds in animal models,” said Byrne at the University of Virginia.