Partial heart transplant
For the first time, successful transplantation of heart muscles grown in the laboratory was carried out
Polina Gershberg, Naked Science
Researchers from Osaka University of Japan for the first time performed an operation to transplant a patient not the whole heart, but part of it. Scientists placed heart muscle cells grown in the laboratory – on a special self–absorbing substrate - on the place of the patient's own heart where the tissues were damaged.
Initially, the team grew muscles for transplantation. Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) were created for this purpose. They are grown from adult human cells, usually from skin or blood tissues. Previously, they are reprogrammed into an undifferentiated state – similar to embryonic cells, from which internal organs are subsequently formed. Having created heart muscle cells from iPSCs, the scientists performed an operation to transplant them to a patient with ischemic cardiomyopathy. With this disease, the pumping of blood by the heart gradually becomes difficult, the muscle fibers of which do not receive enough blood. Over time, in the long run, this leads to the need for a heart transplant.
Professor Yoshiki Sava, who led the operation / © Kyodo
However, with cardiomyopathy, not the entire organ is affected, but only part of its muscles, so an operation like the one carried out by the Japanese team could become an alternative to a complete transplant in the future. Scientists hope that the transplanted cells will secrete a protein that will contribute to the regeneration of blood vessels. This can help improve the functioning of the patient's heart.
After discharge, the researchers are going to monitor the patient's condition over the next year. Nine more similar operations are also planned in the next three years. If everything goes well, such a procedure will become an alternative to a full transplant – and this is important because there is a constant shortage of donor organs, every year people die without waiting for the transplant queue. It is much easier to grow iPSCs than to pick up a donor, in addition, the probability of rejection is lower: the recipient's immune system accepts them better than a new heart.
"I hope that this [IPSC transplant] will become a medical technology that will save as many people as possible, because I have seen many lives that I could not save," researcher Yoshiki Sava said at a press conference.
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