Mature cardiomycetes, heart muscle cells, reside in a state of stasis wherein they do not divide and proliferate. This poses a significant challenge to growing these cells in vitro or regenerating damaged heart tissue in vivo following injury. This method provides a straightforward protocol to induce mature cardiomycetes to undergo cell division and proliferation by treating them with readily available human mesenchymal stem cells. Such stimulation of cardiomycetes is possible in both in vitro and in vivo contexts. Thus, this protocol provides a simple and robust means to induce cardiac growth and repair in heart tissue, potentially offering new therapeutic options to patients suffering from a variety of cardiac diseases and injuries.
Induction of proliferation in mature cardiomycetes is made straightforward by this technology. In this protocol, mature cardiomycetes can be treated directly with human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs), culture media that has been conditioned with hMSCs, or a soluble ligand secreted by the hMSCs. As hMSCs are well characterized and readily available, this method is both simple and highly adaptable to various conditions that may be required for cardiac tissue growth. In a clinical setting, hMSCs can be taken from the patient receiving treatment, and used on the patient’s native cardiac tissue, obviating the need for donor tissue or organs and potentially eliminating most immunological rejection issues associated with current regenerative cardiac methods.
This method has been demonstrated and validated in canine cardiomycetes. Upon treatment with hMSCs or hMSC conditioned media, these cardiomycetes express molecular markers of mitosis such as cyclin D1 and incorporate bromodeoxyuridine into newly synthesized DNA, indicating cardiomycetes have reentered the cell cycle and are proliferating.
Patent Pending (US/2010/0330050)
Tech Ventures Reference: IR CU1662