GUWAHATI: In a big health-related news, researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, have claimed to have developed a ‘Recombinant Protein Toolbox’ that can be used to regenerate damaged heart tissues.
The ‘Recombinant Protein Toolbox comprises 6 special proteins which can be used to convert healthy skin cells or any somatic cells from an adult human body into heart cells, specifically cardiomycocytes, according to a press statement issued by the institute.
The heart cells created using this toolbox can have the same function as the original heart cells, say the researchers’ team, led by Dr. Rajkumar P. Thummer, Assistant Professor, Department of Biosciences & Bioengineering, and including his research scholar Krishna Kumar Haridhasapavalan.
“Importantly, this toolbox can facilitate the generation of autologous heart cells in a lab,” the statement said.
A heart attack happens when a part of the organ is damaged.
In some animals, like the Zebrafish, the heart can grow back after being damaged, but in humans, the heart usually gets scar tissue instead of growing back new heart cells.
The only way to treat heart disease is with a new heart, but there aren’t enough hearts available for transplantation, and it can be hard to make sure the new heart is accepted by the body.
A recombinant protein is a desired protein produced by engineered host cells in a laboratory using recombinant DNA technology.
By exposing skin cells to these proteins, the IIT Guwahati researchers could ‘reprogramme’ the cells and make them have the characteristics of heart cells, the statement said, adding this process can be seen as ‘re-wiring’ the genetic program of the skin cells to be more like that of heart cells.
Explaining the details of their work, Dr.Thummer said, “Recombinant protein-based cellular reprogramming is a promising alternative and the safest approach among other available non-integration approaches.
“As these proteins do not modify or alter the genome of the cells, the cells generated using this reprogramming approach have a high cell therapeutic value.
“Several challenges associated with the heterologous production of these recombinant proteins have been addressed in our six research publications in different journals.”
According to Haridhasapavalan, “The recombinant proteins can be delivered to target sites without the need of any harmful reagents. In addition to cardiac repair, these proteins can be studied for their role in various cancers as suppressors or promotors of tumour growth.”
