Directing Stem-Cells to Treat Injured Heart
Nano Magnets Aid Bone Marrow Cells to Rebuild Damaged Tissue
Aug 19, 2009
Heart diseases are widespread in the western world and cause more than a third of all deaths in the US according to the American Heart Society. A known heart disease treatment uses endothelial progenitor cells (EPC), derived from bone marrow, to fix the injured tissue and reverse the cardiovascular situation. A new research from University College London shows that using an agent to coat the stem cells with nano-magnets can aid in delivering them to the injured heart five times more efficiently than normal methods by just placing magnet near the heart, outside of the body.
Bone Marrow Cells can Reverse Heart Disease
Endothelial progenitor cells are stem cells important for blood vessels formation. In 1997 it was found that these cells are circulated in the blood, it was later further shown that EPC introduced from bone marrow takes active part in regenerating blood vessels in an injured tissue in mice, helping the tissue to regenerate.
After a heart attack, or in its scientific name myocardial infarction, the heart tissue is damaged since blood supply to some of its areas was blocked. In order to regenerate the muscle, the blood supply to the affected area should be renewed. EPC derived from the patient's own bone marrow can help in regenerating blood vessels and rebuilding the damaged heart tissue. Clinical studies have shown that injecting the stem cells into the coronary artery at the site of the occlusion that had caused the heart attack, helped in re-assessing the patient's heart function.
Redirecting the Bone Marrow Cells Using Nanoscale-Magnets
Since the EPC are circulated in the blood, it's hard to recruit them directly to the injured organ. A research headed by Dr Mark Lythgoe from the UCL Centre for Advanced Biomedical Imaging, attacked this issue by using micro-magnets.
Nanoscale magnets are used for decades to track human cells in an MRI scan. The same FDA approved agent used in the MRI scans was used in this research to coat human EPC with magnets.
After injecting the magnet coated EPC into a rat's heart the amount of cells recruited to the damaged heart tissue was measured. By placing a magnet for 12 minutes outside of the rat's heart the researchers have managed to recruit five times more cells than in the control rat in which a magnetic device haven't been used. The promising results indicate that this method can be used to further help in regenerating heart tissue after myocardial infraction.
This cardiovascular related research shows that bone marrow derived cells used to repair injured tissue can be delivered with greater efficiency to the desired location. The outcomes of this experiment can be implemented in other tissues than the heart and other cell types. The researchers believe that the same experiment can mature into clinical trials in few years bringing hope to millions of cardiac patients.
Some more information can be found in UCL's webpage along with a video showing the coated cells attracted by a magnet.
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