New Spray Could Help Heal Post-heart Attack Damage

Heart damage after a heart attack, or myocardial infarction, can be repaired using a spray, as per the study on rat hearts, published in ACS Nano. Introducing stem cells directly to the heart can be risky as they could trigger an immune response or grow uncontrollably, resulting in a tumor. So, researchers tried injecting exosomes into the heart, but they often break down before they can have therapeutic effects.

Cardiac patches, or scaffolds also serve the purpose. Yafeng Zhou and colleagues wanted to develop an exosome solution that could be sprayed onto the heart through a tiny incision, avoiding major surgery.

Researchers mixed exosomes from mesenchymal stem cells with fibrinogen. They added this solution to a tiny, double-barreled syringe that contained a separate solution of thrombin. When the team sprayed the solutions out of the syringe onto a rat’s heart through a small chest incision, the liquids mixed and formed an exosome-containing gel that stuck to the heart.

Small endoscope, inserted through a second small incision, guided the spray needle. In rats that had recently had a heart attack, the exosome spray lasted longer, healed injuries better and boosted the expression of beneficial proteins more than heart-injected exosomes.

In pigs, the spray caused less severe immune reactions and surgical stress than open-chest surgery. The spray is a promising strategy to deliver therapeutic exosomes for heart repair, the researchers say.

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Source-Medindia