Beating heart tissue produced in laboratories

sea-maid submitted, created time 6 months 4 weeks (www.nature.com)

An international team of researchers has used stem cells to create heart tissue, complete with beat. By treating embryonic stem cells with growth factors, they coaxed them into becoming cardiovascular progenitor cells, which then developed into cardiomyocytes, vascular smooth muscle cells, and endothelial cells, which together form blood vessels. When injected into the hearts of mice with induced heart disease, they improve heart function.

What this discovery does not include is fibroblasts, the cells that form the framework of the heart.

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Embryonic stem cells coaxed into key heart cells

sumsung submitted, created time 6 months 4 weeks (www.sciam.com)

Scientists say they have coaxed human embryonic stem cells into becoming three of the major cell types in the human heart, and they improved cardiac function when transplanted into mice. The findings, published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, showed that scientists can efficiently make different kinds of human heart cells for use in basic and clinical research. The researchers said that in the short term, they could be used to test how heart cells respond to different drugs

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Activation of AMP-activated protein kinase by human EGF receptor 2/EGF receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor protects cardiac cells

dovechocolate submitted, created time 1 year 5 months (www.pnas.org)

The human EGF receptor (HER) 2 receptor tyrosine kinase is a survival factor for human cardiomyocytes, and its inhibition may explain the increased incidence of cardiomyopathy associated with the anti-HER2 monoclonal antibody trastuzumab (Genentech, South San Francisco, CA), particularly in patients with prior exposure to cardiotoxic chemotherapies e.g., anthracyclines

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