Researchers have created a new injectable therapy that may help the heart heal after a heart attack and prevent heart failure.
The treatment works by supporting the body’s natural repair system and protecting heart muscle cells.
The research was led by scientists from the University of California San Diego and Northwestern University. They tested the therapy on rats and found that it worked well—even five weeks after being injected. Their findings were published in the journal Advanced Materials on April 25.
After a heart attack, many people are at risk of developing heart failure because the heart muscle is damaged. Professor Karen Christman from UC San Diego said that this new treatment is designed to be used shortly after a heart attack to stop heart failure from developing.
The therapy uses a special compound made from a polymer that mimics a natural protein in the body called Nrf2. Normally, Nrf2 helps cells survive during times of stress, like after a heart attack.
But another protein, KEAP1, binds to Nrf2 and breaks it down. This prevents the body from healing properly. The new treatment blocks KEAP1 from breaking down Nrf2, giving the body a better chance to repair itself.
Once injected into the bloodstream, the polymer goes to work by finding KEAP1 and blocking it. This allows the real Nrf2 to stay active and help heal the damaged heart tissue.
In the study, rats that had suffered a heart attack were treated with either the new polymer or a simple saline solution. The researchers didn’t know which animals got which treatment to keep the test fair. After five weeks, the rats were scanned using MRI machines.
The ones that got the therapy had better heart function and more healing in their heart muscle. They also showed signs of genes being activated that are linked to healing.
While this is just an early test, the results are encouraging. The researchers plan to do more studies to fine-tune the dosage and test the therapy in larger animals before trying it in people.
Professor Nathan Gianneschi from Northwestern University, who co-led the study, said that the therapy could also help treat other diseases, such as macular degeneration, multiple sclerosis, and kidney disease.
He added that many diseases are caused by problems in how proteins inside cells interact. Most current medicines can’t reach inside cells or don’t work well against these kinds of problems. This new approach looks at the issue from a different angle.
Gianneschi developed the therapy while he was a professor at UC San Diego. He now continues the work at Northwestern and is a co-founder of Grove Biopharma, the company that has licensed the rights to this technology.
The study was funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
If you care about heart health, please read studies about how eating eggs can help reduce heart disease risk, and Vitamin K2 could help reduce heart disease risk.
For more information about heart health, please see recent studies about how to remove plaques that cause heart attacks, and results showing a new way to prevent heart attacks, strokes.
The study is published in Advanced Materials.
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