Treatment with Anti-Inflammatory Proteins Following Heart Attack Shows Promise to Reduce the Risk of
- Corax Consultants LLC
- 5. Apr. 2024
- 2 Min. Lesezeit
Two anti-inflammatory molecules reduce the inflammatory response within the injured heart and reduce scarring, according to new research published in The American Journal of Pathology.
Research into the protective effects of two anti-inflammatory molecules, transforming growth factor-beta1 (TGFβ1) and Heligmosomoides polygyrus TGM (HpTGM), following heart attack found that both proteins reduced the inflammatory response within the injured heart and reduced mature scarring. Anti-inflammatory therapy to treat patients following acute myocardial infarction is an exciting prospect that deserves further translational studies, report investigators in The American Journal of Pathology, published by Elsevier.
Patients with acute heart attacks (ST elevation myocardial infarction, or STEMI) are very likely to survive if they undergo timely reopening of the occluded coronary artery (coronary reperfusion) in specialized clinical centers. Despite the given survival rates and major improvements in treatment, progression to heart failure still represents a major clinical problem. The patients’ longer-term outcomes depend on the extent of the damage to their heart tissue.
The research team found that levels of an important anti-inflammatory protein TGFβ1 in the blood of STEMI patients 24 hours after reperfusion correlated with a reduction in infarct size after three months. To investigate this further they used an established mouse model of a heart attack to test the protective effects of TGFβ1, a protein known to be released in the body in response to tissue injury. They also studied its mimic HpTGM, a protein produced by a parasitic worm to help evade the immune response and thereby enable the worm to live within the tissue lining the gut. Intravascular delivery of either of these naturally occurring anti-inflammatory proteins reduced the injurious inflammatory response within the heart and importantly, the extent of heart injury as evidenced by reduced mature scar size.
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