Heart attacks are one of the world’s biggest killers, mainly because of the damage caused by one lead to more later. Thankfully, Rice University researchers have developed an innovative way to repair heart tissue and reduce scarring, by implanting capsules filled with stem cells near the damaged heart.
Why does one heart attack lead to more? When an unlucky individual suffers a heart attack, the organ repairs itself by patching up the damage with scar tissue. However, the problem with scarred heart tissue is that it doesn’t beat as well, which throws the beat off course and eventually leads to more complications down the line, and more heart attacks.
One potential treatment that’s being investigated is – stem cells. The only issue with stem cells is that they don’t stick around long enough to work because the immune system classifies them to be foreign and rids of them.
The Rice researcher’s new study, published in the journal Biomaterials Science, demonstrates a new way to protect these cells while they do their job. They filled alginate hydrogel capsules, a biocompatible material made from brown algae, with mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs).
Ravi Ghanta, the study’s co-lead author, said:
Many of the cells die after transplantation. Initially, researchers had hoped that stem cells would become heart cells, but that has not appeared to be the case. Rather, the cells release healing factors that enable repair and reduce the extent of the injury. By utilizing this shielded therapy approach, we aimed to improve this benefit by keeping them alive longer and in greater numbers.
Each 1.5-mm (0.06-in) alginate capsule was filled with approximately 30,000 MSCs. The capsule was then implanted in mice, close to their damaged hearts. The results showed that after four weeks, the hearts of the mice that received the ‘coated’ stem cells had healed 2.5 times more effective than those of mice that had non-coated stem cells.
Omid Veiseh, another co-lead author of the study, explained:
The immune system doesn’t recognize our hydrogels as foreign and doesn’t initiate a reaction against the hydrogel. So, we can load MSCs within these hydrogels, and the MSCs live well in the hydrogels. They also secrete the same reparative factors that they normally do, and because the hydrogels are porous, the wound-healing factors just diffuse out.
There is still much research and work left to do before this solution can be provided to humans. However, it’s promising since these types of hydrogels and MSCs are already in use in patients for other kinds of treatments.
