Human mini hearts: looking for culprits and victims in cardiac disease

Informazioni relative al progetto

Mini-HEART

ID dell’accordo di sovvenzione: 101001746

DOI

10.3030/101001746

Data della firma CE 23 Luglio 2021

Data di avvio 1 Settembre 2021

Data di completamento 28 Febbraio 2027

Finanziato da

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Costo totale

€ 2 000 000,00

Contributo UE

€ 2 000 000,00

Coordinato da

UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI PADOVA
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - Mini-HEART (Human mini hearts: looking for culprits and victims in cardiac disease)

Periodo di rendicontazione: 2023-03-01 al 2024-08-31

Sintesi del contesto e degli obiettivi generali del progetto

Cardiac disease is the leading cause of cell death globally, according to the World Health Organization. However, predicting cardiac arrhythmia and cardiac failure, understanding the pathological mechanisms underlying onset and progress, and devising new treatments for cardiac diseases remain challenging. Human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) from patients could revolutionise the way we study human disease but, unfortunately, they still fall short in recapitulating complex cardiovascular diseases. We are addressing these challenges in Mini-HEART. We are building advanced three-dimensional cardiac microtissues or “mini-hearts” using different cardiac cell types that we derive from hiPSCs. We aim to 1) Capture signs of cardiac diseases that so far have been difficult to be identified with hiPSC-based models, in particular signs appearing in early adulthood; 2) Understand which of the many cell types present in the heart are responsible for triggering the disease; 3) Test new therapeutic strategies, such as gene editing, to alleviate the disease signs. Our work will create new opportunities for designing novel biomedical tools to capture cardiac disease traits in the laboratory and develop new therapeutic approaches for heart disease.

Lavoro eseguito dall’inizio del progetto fino alla fine del periodo coperto dalla relazione e principali risultati finora ottenuti

Using our three-dimensional human “mini-hearts” we have been able to capture in the laboratory the arrhythmic behaviour of cardiomyocytes from patients with different cardiac diseases affecting the heart rhythm, such as Brugada syndrome and arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy. Previously, it proved challenging to see the phenotype with the “classical” two-dimensional cultures of cardiomyocytes from hiPSCs. We therefore succeeded in capturing postnatal and adult traits of these cardiac diseases.
Together with our collaborators, we discovered the important role of a protein contributing to the maturation of cardiomyocytes. This was one missing piece in the bigger puzzle of the different – yet not identified - factors that make heart regeneration possible.
Finally, we succeeded in correcting DNA mutations in cardiomyocytes from hiPSCs using novel and advanced gene editing strategies. In the next part of the project we will apply the same approach to the three-dimensional “mini-hearts”.

Progressi oltre lo stato dell’arte e potenziale impatto previsto (incluso l’impatto socioeconomico e le implicazioni sociali più ampie del progetto fino ad ora)

With the Mini-Heart project we moved beyond the state of the art because we succeeded in capturing some signs of adult diseases that so far were not possible to see and to study in the laboratory. With the work that we will carry out in the next 2.5 years, we expect to increase the number of postnatal and adult cardiac diseases that we can study in the laboratory, understand the role of other cell types in the heart, such as cells of the immune system and neurons, in playing a role in the development of cardiac disorders, and deliver new tools for the genetic correction of several familial cardiac disease forms.

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