2 replies to this topic

[manofsan]

Researchers have been able to make heart tissue regenerate after a myocardial infarction (heart attack):

http://www.scienceda...81211112016.htm

[Mind]

Does beta-catenin regulate any other well known genetic and/or metabolic pathways? Is it exclusive to stem cells?

Dr. Laura Zelarayán and Assistant Professor Dr. Martin W. Bergmann were able to show that the body`s own heart muscle stem cells do generate new tissue and improve the pumping function of the heart considerably in an adult organism, when they suppress the activity of a gene regulator known as beta-catenin in the nucleus of the heart cells.*

The gene regulator beta-catenin plays an important role in the development of the heart in embyros. Dr. Zelarayán and Dr. Bergmann could now show that beta-catenin is also important for the regeneration of the adult heart. They suppressed this factor in the nucleus of the heart cells in mice.

This way they activated heart precursor cells (stem cells) to turn on the regeneration of heart in adult mice. Four weeks after blocking beta-catenin, the pumping function of the heart of the animals had improved and the mice survived an infarction much better than those animals with a functioning beta-catenin gene. An important contribution to this project has been a transgenic mouse line generated by Professor Walter Birchmeier`s (MDC) laboratory.

[caston]

hallelujah!