After a decade of research in the pursuit of correcting failing or erratic heartbeats, researchers at the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute in Los Angeles, California have successfully converted ordinary heart cells into pacemaker cells by inserting, Tbx18, a gene. In talking about this new method which was published in Nature Biotechnology, Hee Cheol Cho, the Senior Author of the study said, “Although we and others have created primitive biological pacemakers before, this study is the first to show that a single gene can direct the conversion of heart muscle cells to genuine pacemaker cells. The new cells generated electrical impulses spontaneously and were indistinguishable from native pacemaker cells.”
Biological pacemaker cells, which are also know as sinoatrial node (SAN) cells, are only 10,000 in number in the human heart but they have an important function to carry out: to send electrical pulses to the heart muscle cells in order to make them contract rhythmically. So when they do not function as they are supposed to, this can result in irregular or failing heartbeats, and which can prove fatal to the patient. Until now, the only solution for people who suffer with this condition is to insert an electronic pacemaker, provided of course, the patient is healthy enough to undergo surgery.
Even though this new method will ultimately avoid the use of electronic pacemakers and induce SAN cells naturally so that the heart can function normally again, its safety and effectiveness for human clinical trials needs to be determined and is still a long way off.
If it does prove to be effective for humans, then the study’s researchers believe that they can develop a therapy that either injects the Tbx18 gene directly into the heart or transplant them into the heart after developing them in the lab.
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