Recently, researchers have discovered a new way to regenerate heart muscles.
They found this method could help improve damaged heart functions.
The study was done by a team from Duke-NUS Medical School and their collaborators.
Currently, about 700,000 people can survive heart attacks every year in the U.S. However, their heart tissue is usually damaged after a heart attack and cannot be repaired.
In the study, the team aimed to develop a new method that can help regenerate heart muscles.
They focused on a heart muscle associated protein called laminin.
Previous research has shown that the inability of regeneration in the heart is related to our thyroid hormones.
The thyroid gland can produce hormones that regulate body temperature, metabolic rate, and normal heart function.
But the hormones may also shut off heart cell division and prevent a heart from repairing itself after an injury.
It has been hard to find methods to prompt different kinds of stem cells to differentiate into heart cell precursors and help rebuild heart muscles.
In the current study, the team used the protein laminin to promote the differentiation of human embryonic stem cells into heart cell precursors.
The result shows that this method makes stem cells differentiate into cardiovascular precursor cells.
The researchers also tested the method in two different experiments.
They confirmed the finding and found that the method could repair injured heart tissues and improve heart functions in animals.
Their next goal is to test the method on human patients. They hope to help develop a new method for heart regeneration in humans.
The lead author of the study is Dr. Lynn Yap from Duke-NUS’ Cardiovascular and Metabolic Disorders (CVMD) Programme.
The study is published in the journal Cell Reports.
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