The pressure of more stress, lifestyle, and more work is being seen in the mind as well as in the heart of the people. For this reason, heart tissue starts to damage. Till now, the chances of recovery from heart damage were very less. The treatment is so expensive that the common man cannot afford it. Now the team of Biosciences and The Bioengineering Department of IIT Guwahati has developed the Recombinant Protein Toolbox. It contains six special proteins. These can be used to convert healthy skin cells or cells of an adult person into heart cells, specifically cardiomyocytes.
The heart cells created using this toolbox can have the same function as the original heart cells. The heart cells that have been damaged can be recreated. Interestingly, the toolbox can also support the creation of autologous heart muscles in the laboratory.
Cells can be reprogrammed
The Guwahati team has successfully produced cell-permanent recombinant proteins. It can convert skin cells into heart cells. Recombinant protein is a desired protein that is produced from engineered host cells in a laboratory using recombinant DNA technology. By exposing skin cells to these proteins, researchers can reprogram the cells and make them have the characteristics of heart cells.
According to Dr. Rajkumar P. Thummer, Assistant Professor in the Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering at IIT Guwahati, recombinant protein-based cellular reprogramming is a promising alternative and the safest approach among other non-integration approaches available. Because these proteins do not alter or modify the genome of the cells, the cells generated using this reprogramming method have a high cell therapeutic value.
According to Mr. Krishna Kumar Haridhasapavalan, Research Scholar at IIT Guwahati, and first author of the papers published by the team, “The recombinant proteins can be delivered to target sites without the need of any harmful reagents. In addition to cardiac repair, these proteins can be studied for their role in various cancers as suppressors or promotors of tumor growth.”
