Reprogrammed Pig Aortic Heart Valves Create New Options for Human Transplants
BioE Professor Ning Wang coauthored “Engineering Aortic Valves via Transdifferentiating Fibroblasts Into Valvular Endothelial Cells Without Using Viruses or iPS Cells,” published in Bioactive Materials. For the research, human skin cells were reprogrammed into heart valve cells and then used to successfully transplant a pig heart valve into a rodent. Initial tests show promise for the human transplant of heart valves and other organs.
This article originally appeared on Northeastern Global News. It was written by Cyrus Moulton. Main photo: Northeastern University professor Ning Wang led research that uses a new method for successful organ transplants. Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University
Northeastern-led research reprograms skin cells to create human-compatible pig heart valve
Human skin cells have been reprogrammed into heart valve cells and then used to successfully transplant a pig heart valve into a rodent—the result of research led by a Northeastern University professor.
The new procedure—which neither uses a virus as a vector nor reprograms the skin cells first into pluripotent stem cells may offer a new method for successfully transplanting organs in humans.
“This idea in theory can be applied to other tissue replacement organs because it is possible to induce specific tissue/organ cell types and seed them on decellularized animal (such as a pig) tissues/organ and thus engineer a functional tissue/organ,” says Ning Wang, professor of bioengineering at Northeastern.
Wang provided the original idea and guidance for the research, while the lab work was done by two labs led by Junwei Chen at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China. The work is highlighted in the journal Bioactive Materials.
Ning Wang provided the original idea and guidance for the research, which was done in labs in China. Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University
About 30,000 Americans die each year when the aortic valve fails in their heart.
But the current state-of-the-art approaches of using bioprosthetic or mechanical valves made of rubber and metal as a replacement have limitations, especially in patients who are still growing. Using aortic valves from a pig—which has a similar heart structure as a human—is the new frontier, Wang says, as the valves can grow along with the patient.
But the human body does not take kindly to foreign parts … especially those from a swine. It will reject the pig heart valve because the valve has incompatible pig cells on its lining.
That’s where Wang and colleagues come in—creating human valve cells and using them to make the pig heart valve compatible.
The paper describes two major advances.