To fix damaged heart IIT-Guwahati scientists produces proteins

Guwahati: A research team at the Indian Institute of Technology-Guwahati (IIT-Guwahati) has come up with a technique that can transform skin cells into heart cells and regenerate damaged heart tissue. Can be used for

The team, led by Dr. Rajkumar P. Thummer, Assistant Professor, Department of Biology and Bioengineering, along with its research scholar Krishna Kumar Haridhasapavalan, has developed a ‘recombinant protein toolbox’ containing six specific proteins, which can transform healthy skin. can be used to cells or any somatic cells from an adult human body into cardiac cells, particularly cardiomyocytes.
Heart cells created using this toolbox can function like real heart cells and can be used to regenerate damaged heart tissue. Importantly, this toolbox can facilitate the production of autologous heart cells in the laboratory.
It is now well understood that a heart attack occurs when a part of the heart becomes damaged. In some animals, such as Zebrafish, the heart can regrow after damage, but in humans, the heart usually gets scar tissue instead of growing new heart cells.

The only treatment for heart disease is with a new heart, but there aren’t enough hearts available for transplant, and it can be difficult to make sure the new heart is accepted by the body.
Scientists around the world are studying ways to transform regular body cells into heart cells, which can help damaged hearts regenerate. The challenge is that cells can mutate in ways that can be harmful. Therefore, scientists need to find a better, safer way to do this.
Proteins produced from another source, when applied, can change cells from one form to another in a process known as cellular reprogramming. This process involves the use of specific proteins, known as transcription factors, that can change the expression of genes within a cell and direct it to adopt a new cellular identity.

The IIT-Guwahati team has successfully developed a cell-permeant recombinant protein that can transform skin cells into heart cells.
A recombinant protein is a desired protein produced in the laboratory using recombinant DNA technology by engineered host cells.

By exposing skin cells to these proteins, IIT-Guwahati researchers can ‘reprogram’ the cells and make them have the properties of heart cells. This process can be seen as ‘rewiring’ the genetic program of skin cells to be similar to that of heart cells.
Elaborating on their work, Dr. Rajkumar P Thummer, Assistant Professor, Department of Biology and Bioengineering, IIT-Guwahati said, “Recombinant protein-based cellular reprogramming is a promising alternative and one of the most promising among other available non-invasive methods. There is a safe way.Because these proteins do not modify or change the genome of cells, cells generated using these reprogramming methods have high cell therapeutic value. Several of the challenges associated with heterologous production of these recombinant proteins have been addressed in our six research publications in various journals.
According to Krishna Kumar Haridhasapavalan, a research scholar at IIT-Guwahati , and first author of the papers published by the team, “the recombinant protein can be delivered to target sites without the need for any harmful reagents. In addition to cardiac repair, these proteins can be studied as suppressors or promoters of tumor growth in various cancers.
The researchers recently published the development of cell- and nucleus-penetrating versions of six cardiac reprogramming transcription factors in several international peer-reviewed journals including Molecular Biotechnology, Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, Bioprocess and Biosystem Engineering, Current Research in Biotechnology but have shared their results, NERC 2022 Proceedings of Healthcare Research and Related Technologies, Scientific Reports, and Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology.
Notably, Krishna was awarded the ‘Augmenting Writing Skills for Articulating Research (AWSAR) Award 2021’ for his outstanding scientific writing describing this research.

The award was given by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India for his story titled ‘Love may or may not fail, but the heart may fail’.