MU researchers develop new method of researching heart valves, hope to lay foundation for future treatments
University of Missouri researchers have developed a new way to study heart valve stiffness. Heart valve stiffness is caused by build up of calcium in the heart, which can make the heart pump blood less efficiently.
Shiyou Chen is a Professor of Surgery at the University of Missouri School of Medicine, and said heart valve stiffness develops when a heart valve gets injured—whether it’s from age, diet or lifestyle.This causes calcium to build up in the heart, which leads to future complications.
Chen said that there are no medications or treatments for heart valves, so surgery to replace the original valve with an artificial one is the only option.He added that surgery is not ideal for older patients, a group that is usually more prone to have the condition. Additionally, artificial valves don’t last very long and can lead to other medical complications.
To study the condition, the researchers developed a ‘humanized’ model for heart valves where they attach small pieces of human heart arteries and valves to a mouse’s aorta, as well as immune cells from the human patient.
“Currently, the patients have to do the surgery to replace the valve if [they] got a severe disease. So, these models allow the development [of] the medications,”Chen said.
He added that before his team’s research, the only way to study heart valve stiffness was to use animals as stand-ins to simulate human valves and arteries, but those animal models are limited.
“So, that's why we generate a human as the model to use the human artery and human valve to basically recapitulate the disease development,” Chen said.
Chen said that the research he has done with Dunpeng Cai, another researcher and Assistant Professor of Surgery at MU.
So far, their newly developed research method has proved a good alternative to previous methods — showing the same inflammation, thickening, scarring and calcium deposits as diseased valves taken out of humans during surgery.
