heart muscle cells after regenerative treatment. / Salk Institute
Regenerative medicine points the way for the recovery of people with blindness, heart or kidney problems. The steps we are taking are at once promising and, in many cases, very preliminary. The good news is that in the best laboratories in the world are working to identify all the ways in which future medicine might progress: thus, there is no deadlock that prevents to find treatments and cures.
This is the case of the Spanish Juan Carlos laboratory Izpisúa. “We’re looking at several systems in parallel,” he says. Salk Institute in California study how to rebuild reprogramming stem cells and how to use the organs of pigs, for example, to produce them. But they have taken a look at how nature works in other animals, such as salamanders recover limb although the mutilate a hundred and one times. Or zebrafish, which you cut them 20% of his heart and becomes regenerate and again no problems.
Izpisúa and his team have worked to understand the molecular mechanism that allows regenerating zebrafish heart to then consider whether it would be possible in mammals such as mice and humans. In an experiment released today have shown that it is possible: they have managed to activate the mechanism at the heart of an adult mouse to help them recover after being severely damaged by a heart attack
In this article
- Study: “In vivo activation of a Conserved mammalian microRNA robust program you induce heart regeneration “
” We have seen that the factors responsible for heart regeneration in fish have very different expression in . And mammals mice have changed the image of fish as does The result has been spectacular. The mouse heart was also regenerated “sums Izpisúa. Until now it was known that at birth the mouse have a few days in which the ability to regenerate tissue is active, but completely disappears in adults. That is, is a capability that is part of the mouse, which is not lost to the genome evolution even is active during the first days of life: mammals are like salamanders during a short period of time. Now it was determined that rodents have that self-healing, self-superhero comic ability, and in adulthood
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Izpisúa and his team have copied the mechanism used zebrafish to heal your heart
Izpisúa insite on the importance of this work because it would demonstrate that “you can activate endogenous regeneration in mammals similar to what some animals like fish or Mexican axolotl naturally, without transplanting cells from outside the body “, as is being done in other fields of regenerative medicine way. For example, in the last great achievement to get a group of visually impaired patients regain some vision by implanting stem cells in the retina. In this case, the approach would be something Izpisúa: amend certain genes to awaken the zebrafish that all mice have inside
A team member Juan Carlos Izpisúa look microscopic embryo with a mutated zebrafish heart ( fluorescent green), and in 2002 in the laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Investigations of San Diego (California, USA). / ULY MARTIN
The study his team published today in Cell Stem Cell explain that identified four genes that activate or deactivate the self-healing gift. They managed to change first in vitro to check that heart cells recovered (pictured) and subsequently in vivo, directly into the myocardial scar left in the heart of an adult mouse. When one suffers a stroke, a part of the heart, of their cells, which die and leaving the muscle touched or so, with a scar difficult to pump blood and that is what has been achieved in these experiments heal .
He also participated in the article the director of the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona, Josep Maria Campistol, to help focus these efforts toward their future medical application. “What we’re seeing is that we are able to identify genes and proteins involved in this feedback and see how to turn some genes that were no longer active after our evolutionary development,” explains warning that his involvement has been framed in Theoretically
Mice have in their genome the ability to regenerate organs, such as salamanders, but is disabled
So far were using embryonic stem cells and reprogrammed adult (called iPS) for cells to become damaged heart cells. “Juan Carlos [Izpisúa] is always there. Now it is going directly to the gene, which is present and no longer have that capability, which greatly simplifies and facilitates regeneration,” says Campistol. “The next step is to check whether it is reversible in increasingly large mammals: rats, rabbits, pigs,” Campistol progresses, already collaborated with Izpisúa in achieving produce human minirriñones
In any case. The study acknowledges that not fully understand the mechanisms that trigger the self-healing capacity. “We are far to reproduce in humans because we do not know much about the regenerative capacity of these other animals and how to turn off after birth in mammals. Therefore vindicate the importance of engaging in basic research,” argues Izpisúa.
The researcher Nadia Mercader also studies the mechanism that allows regenerating zebrafish heart sectioned in his laboratory at the National Center for Cardiovascular Research. “These are very interesting results, a role model. It’s nice how they copy mechanism in zebrafish,” said Merchant, who was not involved in the work published today. “The interesting thing is that they see that there is an improvement in the response of repair and also have no evidence that heart cells are able to proliferate,” says Merchant. Not only to heal the damaged tissue but causing retrieve grow to its pre-attack state.
So in four years there will be trials in patients. It is a hard road and it’s not good to create false expectations, “says Campistol
In 2011, the team Hesham Sadek, University of Texas found that newborn mice could Heal Your Heart by themselves, opening the way for these later investigations showing that this capacity remains, even if it lasts very little, in mammals. “I think this is an important study that identifies potential regeneration area in the heart of the adult mammals, “says Sadek consulted this wording.” We’ve had numerous breaks in recent years, “recalls the cardiologist,” and I think these results should translate into more studies on different types of injuries, in larger animals and ultimately in patients with heart failure. “
” It’s a step forward, but much remains to be done, “says Mercader remembering to laboratories around the world studying how nature regenerates, from organisms such as hydra and planarian worms until. Campistol match Mercader they are far from bringing these discoveries into medical practice: “We can not forget that behind patients article is important, sheds light on regeneration, but until three or four years there will be evidence. patients. It is a hard road and it’s not good to create false expectations, “he defended.
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