Secret of Heart Regeneration Uncovered


Newts can regrow a limb. Some lizards can sprout new tails. Even humans can replace some damaged tissue in organs, such as the liver. But none can accomplish what the zebra fish, a common denizen of home aquariums, can do: regenerate their hearts. Biologists have long known about the zebra fish's cardiac ability, and now researchers think they have unlocked the secret of the process, which may provide essential clues for human heart repair.

Kenneth Poss and his colleagues at Duke University found that zebra fish, Danio rerio, regenerate heart muscle in two synchronized steps. Within five days of removing about 20 percent of an adult zebra fish heart ventricle, undifferentiated progenitor cells begin to line the injured area and turn into cardiac muscle cells, which grow and divide, building new heart muscle. Meanwhile, developmental genes in the epicardium--a cell layer that surrounds the entire heart and influences embryonic heart development--switch on, activating the epicardial cells. Most of these cells form a new layer to cover the wound and the regenerating heart muscle, but some also create blood vessels for the growing muscle, "fulfilling the same role as they do when the embryonic heart develops," Poss says.

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