New discovery could aid regenerative heart therapies

SINGAPORE, 18 December 2023 – Scientists led by Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore and the University of California, Los Angeles, (UCLA) in the United States have discovered a new control mechanism that can drive the maturation of human stem cell-derived heart muscle cells, providing fresh insight into the maturation process of heart muscle cells from foetal to adult form.

After birth, heart muscle cells undergo extensive changes to become fully mature adult cells, altering their form, function and physiology. However, the regulatory processes governing this maturation have been poorly understood thus far. For regenerative therapies in particular, this lack of understanding has proven a major limitation as efforts to grow stem cell-derived heart muscle cells have not been successful at producing mature adult cells, capable of restoring or improving heart function.

Publishing in Circulation, the research team used transcriptomic analysis to pinpoint an RNA splicing regulator named RBFox1 that was highly elevated soon after birth in a newborn heart. Analyses of published single-cell data also showed dramatic RBFox1 increase in maturing heart cells.

“This represents the first evidence that RNA splicing control contributes significantly to heart cell maturation,” said lead author Dr Huang Jijun, who performed the preclinical study during his postdoctoral work at UCLA. “While RBFox1 alone may not be sufficient to mature foetal heart muscle cells all the way to fully matured adult cells, our findings uncover a new RNA-based internal network that can substantially drive this maturation process beyond other available approaches.” Read more>>

Source: https://www.duke-nus.edu.sg/allnews/new-discovery-could-aid-regenerative-heart-therapies?utm_source=website&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=spotlight