The heart has the ability to heal itself

Cells in the outermost layer of the heart can move deep inside the damaged area to form new blood vessels and tissues. Discovery is a breakthrough in finding self-healing heart stimulation therapy after injury.

Cells located in the outermost layer of the heart are called progenitor. They move under the action of thymosin beta 4 - a type of protein that helps to reduce the rate of cardiac muscle loss after an injury, such as a heart attack.

The position of progenitor cells is colored red.(Photo: BBC)

Progenitor is like stem cells in that they are able to turn into many other cell types. Previously, scientists once thought that they did not exist in the heart. Therefore, to restore damage to the heart, one must use progenitor cells from the spinal cord. This is the first study to demonstrate that progenitor cells exist in the heart tissue.

A team of University College London (UK) found that, under the action of thymosin beta 4, progenitor cells in the outermost layer of the heart can move deep inside to form new blood vessels each when the heart is hurt.

To understand the role of beta 4 thymosin, they created mice without this protein in the heart by gene mutation. When the mice grew up, the team found that their hearts were not growing normally. The phenomenon of tissue loss appears early, while the development of blood vessels is slow.

On closer inspection, they found that without thymosin beta 4, progenitor cells could not move deep into the heart to form new blood vessels and muscle cells.

To find out if thymosin beta 4 is able to help the heart recover from the lesions, they take progenitor cells in rat hearts and feed them in the lab.

" We found that, when exposed to thymosin beta 4, those cells were able to produce healthy heart tissue, " said Dr. Paul Riley, lead researcher.

Riley commented that this finding could help people find ways to restore heart damage more effectively.

" Our test has shown that cardiac resurfacing still occurs even when mice enter adulthood ," he commented. " In the future, if we find a way to control progenitor cell movement, we can develop treatment for heart damage by the patient's own heart cells. With this method, the cell will not encountering immune system rejection - which usually happens when a cell is transplanted from one part to another, another benefit is that the progenitor cell is already in the heart . "

The work of Dr. Paul Riley and colleagues was published in Nature .

Viet Linh