Nature: why can't cardiomyocytes regenerate? Scientists find key pathways

Source: biological exploration 2017-06-07 heart muscle is one of the tissues with the worst regeneration ability in the body Because most of the cardiac cells in adult mammals have lost the regeneration ability, the damage of heart disease to cardiac cells is often unable to be repaired In the United States, heart disease is the leading cause of death How to improve the self-healing ability of the heart has always been a problem of concern to scientists Recently, researchers from Baylor Medical College and Texas Heart Institute explored pathways related to the function of heart cells and found the reasons that hinder heart repair This study, published in nature, provides a new strategy for promoting cardiac cell renewal Professor James Martin, senior author of the study, said: "we explored why the heart muscle could not regenerate In this study, we focused on two pathways of cardiomyocytes or cardiac cells: the Hippo pathway, which is involved in preventing the renewal of adult cardiomyocytes, and the dystrophin glycoprotein complex (DGC) pathway, which is crucial for the normal function of cardiomyocytes We also looked at mutations in the DGC component, because people who have these mutations have muscular dystrophy " Previous studies have shown that the components of DGC pathway may interact with the members of Hippo pathway in some way In this study, Martin and colleagues studied the consequences of this interaction in animal models The researchers used genetic engineering to make mice lack the genes involved in one or two of these pathways, and then determine the ability of the heart to repair damage These studies indicate for the first time that dystroglycan 1 (a component of DGC pathway) binds directly to Yap (a component of Hippo pathway), and this interaction inhibits cardiomyocyte proliferation "We found that the hippo and DGC pathways work together in cardiomyocytes to start or stop cell proliferation signals Maybe in the future, we can help cardiomyocytes to proliferate and heal by destroying this interaction," Martin said Another long-term use of this finding may be to improve cardiac function in children with muscular dystrophy "There is a serious lack of cardiac function in patients with muscular dystrophy," Martin said "Our findings may help drug design to slow the heart failure of muscular dystrophy by stimulating the proliferation of cardiomyocytes But to do that, we need more research to understand in more detail the pathways of cardiomyocyte growth control "