Embryonic Human Stem Cells May Help Repair Heart Muscle, Lab S...( Problems with cell survival functioni...),Health

Problems with cell survival, functioning may have been solved in rat experiments

MONDAY, Aug. 27 (HealthDay News) -- Experiments in rats show that human embryonic stem cells can repair damaged heart muscle, improve heart function and slow the progression of heart failure.

Using stem cells to repair damaged hearts is something that appears promising, but so far it has been fraught with problems.

Previous experiments have shown that it is possible to create heart cells from embryonic stem cells. However, most of these cells do not become heart muscle cells, and many don't survive once transplanted into a damaged heart.

"We found a way to increase the survival of these cells," said lead researcher Dr. Charles Murry, director of the Center for Cardiovascular Biology and Regenerative Medicine at the University of Washington, in Seattle.

Murry's team created a "survival" cocktail that prevented the cells from dying. The treated cells were then implanted in rats that had had their hearts damaged to simulate a heart attack.

"If we prepared our cells in this cocktail and transplanted them, we could get virtually 100 percent of the rats to have human heart muscle grafts in them," Murry said.

The researchers compared the rats receiving the cells with three other groups of rats. One group received only injections of water, and another group was given the survival cocktail without cells. The third group was given non-cardiac cells.

The researchers found that the rats that didn't receive the human heart cells all developed heart failure, according to the report in the Aug. 27 online issue of Nature Biotechnology.

"In contrast, the animals that got the human heart muscle grafts implanted in them had a complete reversal of the progression of heart failure," Murry said.

The study shows that growing heart muscle in an injured heart is possible, Murry noted. "In pat
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