Stem Cells Can Regenerate the Hearts of Patients with Heart Disease
Research from the renowned University of Otago, New Zealand, offers new insights into heart repair — specifically, how a patient's own adult stem cells can be used to regenerate their diseased heart.
The University of Otago is a prestigious institution with a long history in New Zealand. The research is led by Dr. Rajesh Katare, a physiologist, and his Katare Laboratory has been dedicated to cutting-edge biomedical research.
This study, led by Dr. Rajesh, is the first in the medical field to investigate the heart repair potential of three types of stem cells from the same patient. Previously, Dr. Katare has also made significant achievements in the treatment of diabetes using stem cells and in reducing diabetes-related cardiac risks.
In recent years, the approach of extracting and transplanting a patient's own stem cells to aid heart repair has generated substantial research interest worldwide. However, identifying the optimal cell type for therapy remains a major challenge.
To help overcome this challenge, Dr. Katare and his team cultured stem cells obtained from 14 patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) surgery, and then compared the function of three types of adult stem cells. Two of these three cell types were derived from the patient's own heart — the left ventricle and the right atrium — while the third type was obtained from the same patient's circulating blood.
Under experimental conditions, the researchers simulated the low oxygen and low nutrient conditions present in a patient's diseased heart. They then studied the therapeutic effects of each of the three stem cell types in repairing damaged heart cells.
They found that right atrial stem cells provided the greatest protective effect on cardiomyocytes (heart muscle cells), while ventricular stem cells were the most effective at promoting the formation of new blood vessels.
The third cell type, endothelial progenitor cells, were equally effective in promoting blood vessel growth, but the researchers found that these cells had a significantly reduced potential for proliferation in culture and for migration toward the site of cardiac cell injury.
Dr. Katare said that if these findings can be validated in clinical trials, they suggest that stem cell therapy may need to be personalized according to the type of heart disease a patient has.
"Our findings also provide a possible explanation for several failed clinical trials of stem cell therapy," he said.
The study was funded by the J&C Anderson Trust and the Heart Foundation of New Zealand, and the findings were published in the International Journal of Cardiology.