The DISCOVER III study
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The characterisation of chamber and disease-specific fibroblasts from adult human heart and investigation of their potential contribution to myocardial regeneration.
IRAS ID
164456
Contact name
Prakash Punjabi
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Joint Research Compliance Office, Imperial College London
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 31 days
Research summary
Fibroblasts are a group of biological cells that has the potential to differentiate into diverse specialized cell types. These cells play important role in tissue self-repairing after injury and scar formation; for example, fibroblasts in the skin are responsible for wound healing after an operation.
In the past 15 years, compelling evidence has accumulated suggesting that the human heart has a regenerative capacity throughout its lifespan. Cardiac fibroblasts comprise over 50% of all the cells in the heart and cardiomyocytes, lost after ischemia, are replaced by fibroblasts. Cardiac fibroblasts are critically involved in both reparative and detrimental fibrotic responses post Myocardial infarction (MI).
However, it is still not clear why these cardiac fibroblasts, which can differentiate into the different lineage during early development, cannot adequately repair the human heart after a MI. One of reasons could be that the human cardiac fibroblast in adult life have lost the signals which leads to its transformation into cardiomyocytes and thus lead to only scar formation but doesn’t repair a large damage post MI. Recent research work has shown that cardiac fibroblasts can be safely isolated from heart muscle biopsy samples and be stimulated outside the human body. Injecting these stimulated cardiac fibroblasts back to the damaged heart muscle in the same patient could potentially help improve the heart function.
This study aims to take small heart muscle samples during surgery from all four chambers of human heart in patients with normal and abnormal function to identify and compare the cardiac fibroblasts isolated from different chambers of hearts. We believe the results of this study will provide us with baseline information on fibroblasts and allow us to compare the number and function of fibroblasts in different chambers and also between healthy and diseased hearts.REC name
London - Harrow Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/LO/0098
Date of REC Opinion
27 Mar 2015
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion