Exposure to vitamin C helps mouse embryonic stem cells transform into heart muscle cells.

There's a lot of interest in getting stem cells - primitive cells occurring early in development - to differentiate into specific cell types. Researchers at Harvard Medical School now report on using stem cells from mouse embryos as a source of heart muscle cells.

The researchers tried exposing the stem cells to 880 different bioactive substances, to see if they could induce differentiation. Only vitamin C had any effect - triggering changes that made the stem cells become heart muscle cells. The new cells produced heart muscle proteins called cardiac myosin and actin.

The work is at a very early stage, but one day stem cells may be a source of heart muscle cells that could be used to repair the damaged heart. After a heart attack, the muscle is damaged because it has been deprived of oxygen. Such cells cannot be regenerated, but new heart muscle cells might be able to take their place through transplantation.

Source

Circulation 1st April 2003