Beating heart tissue grown in lab
Talking about novel receptor genes expressed in human tissues. This morning's news featured, An international team of cell biologists has created heart tissue — complete with beat — in a test tube. The tissue culture contains three distinct cell types, each of which is important in functioning hearts, and is thus a step towards the advent of lab-grown heart-tissue transplants.
To day, research is considerably accelerated by the use of scientific knowledgebase and informatics tools which aid researchers significantly minimize time and effort spent on knowledge transfer across their teams and in scientific study. Thanks to such tools which supplement lab work and act as comprehensive repertoire that make optimal use of the plethora of data available in literature and centralize it as a searchable tool to investigate the characteristics of functional ligand-receptor pairs and their potential use and applications.
The research team led by Gordon Keller of the McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine in Toronto, Canada, created the heart cells from human embryonic stem cells. Researchers found that treating the embryonic stem cells with growth factors encourage them to develop into cardiovascular progenitor cells which have the potential to become any of three specialized types of heart cell — two muscle cell types (cardiomyocytes and vascular smooth muscle) and endothelial cells.
When these progenitor cells were grown in a dish, they developed their own intrinsic 'heartbeat'. What's more, when researchers transplanted a mixture of the three cell types into the hearts of mice with simulated heart disease, their heart function improved significantly. Although not yet tested in humans, the technique could offer a useful way to patch up heart muscle damaged by a heart attack.
To day, research is considerably accelerated by the use of scientific knowledgebase and informatics tools which aid researchers significantly minimize time and effort spent on knowledge transfer across their teams and in scientific study. Thanks to such tools which supplement lab work and act as comprehensive repertoire that make optimal use of the plethora of data available in literature and centralize it as a searchable tool to investigate the characteristics of functional ligand-receptor pairs and their potential use and applications.
The research team led by Gordon Keller of the McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine in Toronto, Canada, created the heart cells from human embryonic stem cells. Researchers found that treating the embryonic stem cells with growth factors encourage them to develop into cardiovascular progenitor cells which have the potential to become any of three specialized types of heart cell — two muscle cell types (cardiomyocytes and vascular smooth muscle) and endothelial cells.
When these progenitor cells were grown in a dish, they developed their own intrinsic 'heartbeat'. What's more, when researchers transplanted a mixture of the three cell types into the hearts of mice with simulated heart disease, their heart function improved significantly. Although not yet tested in humans, the technique could offer a useful way to patch up heart muscle damaged by a heart attack.
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