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Rendering of a cardiac cell colonized by a mitochondrion: that is the "central" cell "and produces energy for many functions, including movement and transport of nutrients
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Q When Georgia was born by caesarean section on May 18th, everything seemed normal. Then a heart attack occurred and a large part of his heart died.
The doctors kept him alive thanks to a heart-lung machine. Then from Mbadachusetts General Hospital in Boston, the baby was transferred to the children's hospital, where he followed an experimental therapy, never used after a heart attack. Billions of mitochondria have been isolated from a healthy part of the neck muscle, the organelles acting as the energy center of each cell, and infused them into the heart. We can see that they were able to reactivate the heart cells.
The idea is as simple as it is brilliant and relies on animal testing: mitochondrial transplantation revitalizes not only the heart muscle but also the lungs and kidneys. compromised functionality. It reduces the damage to the brain caused by a stroke. "When a cell is about to die, the first ones to give in are just the mitochondria, which release pro-apoptotic factors, that is to say, promote cell death," says Silvia Garagna, development biologist. at the University of Pavia. "In the absence of energy, the cell has no way out. The brilliant idea is therefore to provide the dying cell (but must be in an initial phase of death) mitochondria in the hope of "resuscitating". In the case of Georgia – says Sitarami Emani, the pediatrician who performed the transplant – the intervention was risky because we did not know when the cardiac arrest had occurred and how long ago it was s & # 39; 39 was pbaded between the attack and the development of scar tissue.
Images obtained with an electron microscope by James McCully, a scientist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center who works with Emani, showed how mitochondria of heart cells after infarction are small in an anomalous and translucent manner, instead of blacks like those in good health. In tests on pigs, mitochondria obtained from an abdominal muscle injected into the heart muscle moved like magnets to the right place in the cells and provided energy, healing the heart. The first experience on a child – they say – dates back to 2015: at the Children's Hospital, a newborn was transferred whose heart had been deprived of oxygen during an operation due to a conbad defect. McCully derived the precious mitochondria that Emani injected. After two days, the baby's heart was beating normally.
Up to now, 11 children have been treated and in three cases the intervention did not give a positive result, "perhaps because we intervened late": the scientists are convinced that the technique works, but they are aware of the need for a randomized clinical trial. Now, while the idea of resorting to mitochondria transplantation, even in adults affected by a heart attack, Emani focuses on Georgia. Part of his heart is desperately dead and a support device "help". He was put on a waiting list for a heart transplant and "shows signs of improvement – says the mother -: it's a living miracle".
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