Stem cell discovery to mend heart damage
POSTED April 26, 2010 - 14:59 | POSTED BY Kangna Agarwal
Last edited by Harpreet Bhagrath on April 26, 2010 - 16:14
The discovery has been made from the leftover veins used in the lifesaving bypass heart surgery.
The breakthrough offers hope to millions of heart patients. It is also speculated that the findings could pave the way for potential drugs and treatments to repair damaged heart muscles.
Lab experiment
In a bid to determine whether adult stem cells could be attained from the leftovers of a bypass surgery, a team from University of Bristol carried out a lab experiment.
The researchers devised a way to extract stem cells from the leftover pieces of blood vessels removed during heart operations and used them to stimulate the growth of new arteries.
A heart patient often has a damaged or a blocked artery supplying blood to the heart. An interrupted blood supply can cause chest pain or even a heart attack.
During a heart bypass surgery, a section of vein is taken, usually from the patient’s leg, and grafted on the blocked or damaged artery to restore the blood supply.
The surgeon normally takes a longer section of the vein than actually required so there is always a leftover piece.
Stem cells found to improve blood flow
To their surprise, the researchers could extract sizeable amounts of adult stem cells. These cells were then seeded in special plates to grow until the team got 50 to 60 million cells.
The team then interjected the cells into the leg muscle of a mouse which had been deprived of blood to stimulate heart attack-like condition.
Tests on mice revealed that the cells appeared to trigger the growth of new blood vessels and also improved the blood flow.
Professor Paolo Madeddu, who led the research, was quoted by the BBC as saying, "This is the first time that anyone has been able to extract stem cells from sections of vein left over from heart bypass operations.
"These cells might make it possible for a person having a bypass to also receive a heart treatment using their body's own stem cells."
The researchers are now planning to carry out bigger experiments to test the efficacy of stem cell therapy in human heart patients.
Stem cells are immature cells that can be programmed to function in different ways because they have the ability to produce different type of human cells.
Findings of the study have been reported in the journal Circulation.
