Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tan Jun Jie
Advanced Medical and Dental Institute (IPPT), Universiti Sains Malaysia
Email: jjtan@usm.my
Phone No: (+6)04-562 2422
Understanding how different types of cells interact in embryos to build a human heart could lead to better grafts for healing mature hearts.
New stem cell research at Universiti Sains Malaysia's Advanced Medical and Dental Institute could lead to more sophisticated and repairing damaged hearts. Their findings were published in the journal Nature Communications.
Mature human cells collected from blood or skin can be programmed to re-enter an embryonic state and eventually go on to develop into different types of mature cells.
The USM scientists used a cocktail of natural cell-stimulating proteins to convert these 'human induced pluripotent stem cells' (hiPSC cells) into a premature form of epicardial cells: essential precursors of several essential cell types needed to build a developing heart. The team investigated how these pre-epicardial cells can direct the essential activities of the heart muscle cells (known as cardiomyocytes) that power heart contraction.
Mature cell and tissue grafts for repairing damaged hearts. Their findings were published in the journal Nature Communications. Mature human cells collected from blood or skin can be programmed to re-enter an embryonic state and eventually go on to develop into different types of mature cells.
The USM scientists used a cocktail of natural cell-stimulating proteins to convert these 'human induced pluripotent stem cells' (hiPSC cells) into a premature form of epicardial cells: essential precursors of several essential cell types needed to build a developing heart. The team investigated how these pre-epicardial cells can direct the essential activities of the heart muscle cells (known as cardiomyocytes) that power heart contraction.
"Cardiomyocytes derived from hiPSCs hold broad potential for treating heart conditions, and for promoting research to investigate heart disease, engineer heart tissues for therapeutic grafts and screen potential drugs targeting heart conditions," says USM Associate Professor Jun Jie Tan.
Tan and his USM colleagues worked on the research with a team from the Center for Regenerative Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School in the USA. The Harvard researchers, led by Harald Ott, are exploring options for developing organ and tissue engineering methods as an alternative to organ transplantation. The researchers co-cultured their pre-epicardial cells with cardiomyocytes to explore how they interact, modelling what happens in a developing embryo. They found that the cardiomyocytes grouped together into dense aggregates with the help of the pre-epicardial cells, and formed a connected and regularly beating tissue mass. These changes occurred while the pre-epicardial cells became more mature and secreted a growth factor protein that could stimulate cardiomyocyte proliferation. So, with cultured cells in a dish, the team has recreated key steps towards a beating heart.
Overall, this study suggests that pre-epicardial cells could be used to help produce viable, engineered cardiac tissues for use in therapeutic tissue grafts and in research. It also advances the basic understanding of how hearts develop in human embryos, which could assist developments in the diagnosis and treatment of a variety of heart conditions.
"We believe our work could help create more sophisticated, mature and therefore more useful cardiac tissue grafts," Tan says.
