Researchers successfully repair damaged mouse heart with embryonic heart muscle cells

an international team of researchers has successfully restored heart function in mice by implanting embryonic heart cells into damaged miceheartThe results suggest that the technology could be used in the future to treat human heart tissueResearchers at Cornell University in New York and researchers in Bonn, Germany, implanted embryonic heart muscle cells into the hearts of damaged mice and found that they could naturally bind together with surrounding heart tissue and gradually restore function to the damaged heart, which the researchers were able to achieve using a small number of embryonic heart muscle cells, the British journal Nature reportedMichael Kautlikov, who led the study,andCornell University, saidthe reasonembryonic heart muscle cells bind to surrounding heart tissue and repair damaged mouse hearts is,embryonic heart cells and ordinary heart cells have a genecalled "CONNEXIN 43", whichthe gene plays an important role in connecting cells,that it allows embryonic heart muscle cells to fit well into heart tissuethe team conducted only two weeks of follow-up assessments of the transplant, which is too short to determine how reliable the transplant method will be for the long term, Kotrikov saidAnd in the study, the damaged heart parts of mice were concentrated in only one specific area of the heart, unlike the often damaged parts of the human heart Therefore, this technology has to overcome some technical challenges before it can be used in clinical practice