Gene therapy to properly apply heartbeat

2002/09/12 Galarraga Aiestaran, Ana - Elhuyar Zientzia

• Genetika
• Medikuntza

In embryos all heart cells have the ability to give rhythmically pulsations. However, when mature, most cells lose the ability to beat and only specialized cells have that ability. The problem is that sometimes these cells that control the heartbeat with age die. This involves the installation of 600,000 pacemakers annually.

Thanks to pacemakers, the heart receives the electrical force necessary to start the beat, in addition to controlling the beat rhythm. However, not everything is favorable: the pacemaker placement operations are long, expensive and dangerous, the batteries must be replaced every 5-10 years and the patient must avoid magnetic fields such as metal detectors and various medical scanners.

To overcome all these problems, researchers have invented a way to give this ability to cells that are unable to produce beats. In fact, they have used gene therapy to regain the ability that embryo heart cells lose and return to heartbeat. A virus has modified the protein that introduces positive potassium ions into the cell. The virus carries a gene that encodes this protein, but in this case the protein is modified.

When the heart cells produce modified protein thanks to the gene introduced, the cell stops working. This generates a negative electrical charge inside the cell; electricity spreads to the whole heart and a rhythmic contraction is formed. It seems that it is enough to change some thousands of cells, so many viruses and genes are not necessary.

The results of the study have been published in the journal Nature. However, research is in its beginnings and, for use in humans, it must go a long way.