Researchers and cardiologists from the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch and the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin (Germany) have recently demonstrated that the body's own heart muscle stem cells can generate new tissue after a heart attack.

Using adult mice, Dr. Laura Zelarayán and Assistant Professor Dr. Martin W. Bergmann suppressed the activity of a gene regulator known as beta-catenin in the nucleus of the heart cell. This gene regulator, beta-catenin, plays an important role in the development of the heart in embryos - and they theorized correctly that suppressing its activity would cause the heart stem cells to turn back on and help to regenerate the heart tissue.

Four weeks after blocking beta-catenin, the pumping function of the heart of the animals had improved and the mice survived an infarction much better than those animals with a functioning beta-catenin gene.

In addition, the researchers have proven that heart muscle stem cells exist. So far, these cells had not been characterized clearly. They could demonstrate that two markers for heart cells – the structural protein alpha myosin heavy chain and the transcriptionfactor Tbx5 - are also expressed on heart precursor cells. "The evidence of cells with these markers in the adult heart demonstrates that stem cells dating back from heart development survive in niches in the adult heart", Dr. Bergmann explains.

The researchers in Germany collaborated with scientists in the Netherlands and Belgium. For this research, Dr. Bergmann was awarded the Wilhelm P. Wintersteinpreis this summer. The research group of Dr. Bergmann, a guest researcher at the MDC who recently became Deputy of the Department of Cardiology at the Asklepios Clinic St. Georg in Hamburg, belongs to the research group of Professor Rainer Dietz (MDC and Charité).

Contact:
Barbara Bachtler
Press and Public Affair
e-mail: presse@mdc-berlin.de
http://www.mdc-berlin.de/