Heart attacks, like any wound, often leave behind scar tissue. But a scarred heart isn't just disfigured, it's weaker -- scar tissue can't contract so the organ loses some of its pumping ability.

If only a fairy could wave a magic wand to transform scar tissue into heart muscle cells.

Well, that transformation has happened in mice -- but the fairy was a team of Duke University Medical Center scientists, and the magic wand was a kind of small molecule called microRNA, which can turn many kinds of genes on or off.

Scientists administered microRNA to scar tissue cells both in petri dishes and in the hearts of living mice, which reprogrammed the scar tissue cells into muscle cells that power the heart; no stem cells or surgery required.

The scientists, led by senior author Victor J. Dzau, reported their findings on Tuesday in the journal Circulation Research.

Scientists need to conduct further studies to examine how the transformed tissue performs compared to the rest of the heart, Dzau said in a telephone interview. And it still remains to be seen if the method works on human hearts.

However, this proof of concept is important in that it shows that scar tissue can be reprogrammed in living animals.

Similar reprogramming may be possible for scar tissues found in other organs including brains and kidneys, Dzau said.

The Duke research is similar to findings reported by Gladstone Institutes scientists in Nature last week. But Gladstone researchers used a different method to reprogram the scar tissue, giving mice a cocktail of three genes instead of microRNA.

The effect was essentially the same. Genes that encouraged the development of heart muscle characteristics were switched on, and the scar tissue gradually metamorphosed into myocardial cells of the heart muscle.

Continued here:
Scientists Reprogram Cells To Heal Broken Hearts

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