Zebrafish can regenerate damaged heart within 90 days

Do you know a fish species zebrafish can regenerate a damaged heart within the time of 90 days, unlike humans? A heart attack leaves permanent damage to a human heart.

However, zebrafish, can restore heart-damaged tissue and regrow damaged muscle as adults. Hence, Biologists throw light on how zebrafish heal heart tissue and regenerate cardiac tissue.

Zebrafish have special characteristics showing heart muscle cells that are still alive can divide and generate new cells. Because of this, the hearts of zebrafish may regenerate new tissue to replace their damaged heart muscle cells.

The study’s author Phong Nguyen said previous research has effectively discovered potential boosters of heart cell division. However, the later stage of freshly generated heart muscle cells has never been investigated.

Phong said it is unclear how these cells stop diving and mature enough so that they can contribute to normal heart function. The fact that the newly created tissue in zebrafish hearts grew spontaneously. And then completely merged with the existing heart tissue confusing them.

Hence, the researchers under the supervision of Phong Nguyen revealed they developed thick slices of damaged zebrafish hearts outside of the body to closely examine the growth of newly generated tissue.

This process made it possible for them to understand how a zebrafish can regenerate a damaged heart. They found heart contractions and maturity of the heart muscle cells depend on calcium inward and outward movement.

According to Phong, the pace at which calcium enters and exists in the heart changes with time following heart muscle cell division. The newly divided cell’s calcium was initially very similar to early heart muscle cells, but over time the heart muscle cells assumed a mature type of calcium handling.

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The researchers found another key player in zebrafish heart generation called LRRC 10. LRR 10 is a specific protein that controls both the division and maturation of heart muscle cells. When LRRC 10 is missing, heart cells keep dividing and stay immature.

However, when LRRC 10 is present, it stops excessive cell division, preventing the heart from becoming too large. So, LRRC 10 is the main factor promoting normal heart function in zebrafish, unlike humans.

Humans cannot regenerate damaged hearts like zebrafish because their heart cells don’t have the same ability to divide and mature to repair themselves.