Adult Bone Marrow Cells Mend Heart without Transplant

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August 24, 2001Adult Bone Marrow Cells Mend Heart without Transplant

Hearts damaged by lack of blood supply can be mended by the body’s own bone

marrow cells, researchers have now demonstrated. This gives the lie to the claim

that embryonic stem cell research is necessary. Dr. Mae-Wan Ho reports.

 

Sudden blockages of a major artery to the heart cuts off blood supply and lead

to rapid death of the muscle cells and blood vessels in the heart. This

condition, myocardial infarction, is a common form of heart disease. Despite the

demonstration that some of the heart muscle cells can multiply and new vessels

formed, regeneration is restricted to the living part of the heart wall. The

‘infarcted’ or dead area is irreversible, and in time, scar tissue is formed.

Attempts to replace the dead tissue by transplanting heart muscle cells or

skeletal muscle cells have failed to mend the damaged part properly.

 

In previous experiments on mice, researchers in New York Medical College and the

National Institute of Health injected bone marrow cells along the border of the

damaged area of the heart, and found that the cells did differentiate into

muscle and blood vessels. But this surgical intervention killed a high number of

the mice and the grafting success was only 40%. This prompted them to consider a

‘non-invasive’ method, which involved stimulating the mice to overproduce bone

marrow cells before and after myocardial infarction was induced [1].

 

For the purpose, the mice were given daily injections of two cytokines (small

molecules that influence the activities of cells), stem cell factor (SCF) and

granulocyte-colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF), which increased the number of

circulating stem cells two to three hundred fold.

 

Mice given cytokines had a survival rate of 73% after the operation, compared

with 20% in controls not given cytokines. There were clear signs of repair in

the damaged area of the heart in the cytokine-injected group, both new heart

muscle and blood vessels were formed, whereas only scar-tissue was found in

controls. The hearts of the cytokine-injected group also performed significantly

better than the controls.

 

The experimental results looked impressive enough even though the protocol of

inducing myocardial infarction in such large numbers of animals is debatable. In

addition, there was an unaccountably small number of experimental animals, only

15 compared to 52 in the group of controls. This may be because the researchers

excluded mice that died within 48h of the operation, " to minimize the influence

of the surgical trauma " . But could it be that the mice died from stress of

overproduction of bone marrow cells caused by the cytokines injected? There are

certainly more ways to be invasive; and much more effort should be devoted to

reducing unnecessary and stressful interventions, both physical and chemical.

 

It is most important to clarify the effects of the cytokines before these are

recommended for clinical trials.

 

1. Orlic D, Kajstura J, Chimenti S, Limana F, Jakoniuk I, Quaini F, Nadal-Ginard

B, Bodine DM, Leri A and Anversa P. Mobilized bone marrow cells repair the

infarcted heart, improving function and survival. PNAS Early Edition

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.181177898

 

 

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