Researchers at the University of Florida have successfully created healthy mouse heart muscle cells from adult bone marrow stem cells. Unlike skeletal muscle, cardiac muscle is unable to repair itself, therefore when it is damaged the damage is permanent. Being able to repair damaged cardiac muscle could save the lives of millions of people throughout the world whose heart muscles has been damaged by disease.
Study co-author Dr Barry Byrne and his colleagues found that human bone marrow stem cells differentiated into heart muscle after being injected into the coronary arteries of immunodeficient mice. Tests showed that the new muscle cells were functional and had the same physical characteristics as mouse heart cells. In fact, just two weeks after injection, the new muscle cells were indistinguishable from the animals own rod-shaped heart muscle cells. Previous studies have demonstrated that mouse bone marrow stem cells could be transformed into mouse heart muscle, however this study was the first if its kind to show that human stem cells could be transformed into mouse heart muscle.
Byrne and his colleagues are now studying whether the human stem cells can regenerate heart muscle cells in animals with different diseases, for example cardiomyopathy. The researchers say that it may be possible to carry out human trials within two to three years.
SOURCE/REFERENCE: Reported by www.AScribe.org Newswire on the 7th February 2001
