Hereditary Link To Heart Disease Puts Male Siblings At Highest Risk

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World-first Vascularization To Advance Global Research Into Heart Disease

Australian researchers have achieved two firsts that will assist in the global battle against heart disease: they created a tiny beating heart with its own vascular system and then uncovered how the vascular system affects inflammation-driven heart damage.

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are one of the leading causes of death globally. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), CVDs claim an estimated 17.9 million lives yearly. Death rates due to CVDs are expected to rise, given our aging population and the impact of lifestyle-related risk factors.

CVDs include any condition that affects the heart or circulation, such as heart attack and coronary artery disease, high blood pressure, stroke, and vascular dementia. Given the prevalence of CVDs, it's important that research continues to uncover new ways of preventing, diagnosing and treating this group of diseases.

Australian researchers have contributed to the acceleration of research in the area of heart disease with their creation of a tiny heart organoid.

Organoids are tiny structures that mimic human organs. They're grown in a lab, using human pluripotent stem cells, which can be generated using 'reprogrammed' skin or blood cells.

"Each organoid is only about the size of a chia seed, measuring just 1.5 millimeters [0.06 in] across, but inside are 50,000 cells representing the different cell types that make up the heart," said James Hudson, corresponding author of the study.

Here, researchers created a tiny beating organoid, which is nothing new. But, for the first time, they were able to successfully incorporate vascular cells, the cells that line blood vessels, bringing the model heart even closer to replicating the real thing.

"Incorporating the vascular cells for the first time in our mini heart muscles is very significant because we found they had a key role in the biology of the tissues," Hudson said. "Vascular cells made the organoids function better and beat strongly. This has really opened up our ability to better understand the heart and accurately model disease."

The added bonus of vascular cells meant that the researchers could investigate how they affect inflammation, which can cause the heart to stiffen. In another first, the researchers uncovered the key role the vascular system plays in inflammation-driven heart muscle injury.

"When we stimulated inflammation in our mini heart muscles, we found the vascular cells played a central role," said Hudson. "We only saw the stiffening in the tissues that had the vascular cells. The cells sensed what was happening and changed their behavior, and we identified that the cells release a factor called endothelin that mediates the stiffening."

The researchers say that this discovery, and the use of their novel heart organoid, could lead to new treatments for heart disease.

"That's where our new system of producing vascularized cardiac organoids will really give us an advantage because we'll be able to progress the search for new treatments much more quickly," Hudson said.

Publication of the study will help researchers worldwide create their own vascularized organoid, boosting the global effort to tackle heart disease, the researchers say. Moreover, they say their discovery could be used to create kidney and brain organoids, accelerating research into the diseases that affect those organs.

The study was published in the journal Cell Reports, and the below video from the QIMR Berghofer shows the novel human heart organoid in action. James Hudson, one of its creators and authors of the current study, explains how the organoid was created and how it might be used.

Vascularised heart organoids video V2

Source: QIMR Berghofer

Researchers Create Breakthrough In Vascularized Heart Organoids

An Australian research team led by QIMR Berghofer has succeeded in introducing a vascular system into tiny living and beating model human heart muscles, an achievement which it's hoped will accelerate progress toward the ultimate goal of repairing damage from heart disease.

The findings, published in the journal Cell Reports, have also for the first time revealed the central role the vascular system plays in causing inflammation-driven injury of the heart muscle, which is important for several diseases that can cause heart injury including COVID-19.

The new vascularized tiny heart muscles, or organoids, more closely mimic the human heart and will allow much more accurate testing of new drugs to treat disease and inflammation, and take scientists a step closer to the holy grail of repairing heart tissue.

Lead researcher Professor James Hudson, who heads QIMR Berghofer's Cardiac Bioengineering Research Group, said vascularizing the tiny hearts is a game changer for their work.

"We only know a fraction about the biology underpinning the heart so we're constantly trying to improve our cardiac organoids to simulate the heart's complex cellular interactions and tissue composition.

"Each organoid is only about the size of a chia seed, measuring just 1.5 millimeters across, but inside are 50,000 cells representing the different cell types that make up the heart," Professor Hudson said.

Organoids are grown from human pluripotent stem cells which can be generated using "reprogramming" of skin or blood cells. Until now, the model hearts included a range of cell types including the cells that hold the tissue together and the cells that make them beat, but researchers had not been able to add the critical vascular cells.

Credit: QIMR Berghofer

"Incorporating the vascular cells for the first time in our mini heart muscles is very significant because we found they had a key role in the biology of the tissues. Vascular cells made the organoids function better and beat strongly. This has really opened up our ability to better understand the heart and accurately model disease," Professor Hudson said.

The team is focused on finding therapeutics to repair different types of heart damage. One of those is inflammation, which is the body's reaction to insults such as metabolic disease or COVID-19, causing the heart to stiffen so it fails to fully relax and fill with enough blood.

"When we simulated inflammation in our mini heart muscles, we found the vascular cells played a central role. We only saw the stiffening in the tissues that had the vascular cells. The cells sensed what was happening and changed their behavior, and we identified that the cells release a factor called endothelin that mediates the stiffening. We can now target this mechanism to see if we can control it with new therapeutics," Professor Hudson said.

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in Australia claiming the lives of around 18,000 people each year. It is a major burden on the health system costing around $12 billion annually. The trend is predicted to worsen due to an aging population and lifestyle factors.

"Heart disease is devastating for the patient and their loved ones. And it is a huge burden on the economy. Finding new treatments is crucial to addressing this.

"For one type of heart failure that we work on, preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), there is only one therapeutic available, so we urgently need to identify new drugs to improve patient outcomes and reduce the burden of heart disease.

"That's where our new system of producing vascularised cardiac organoids will really give us an advantage because we'll be able to progress the search for new treatments much more quickly," Professor Hudson said.

Publication of the research will assist researchers around the world to replicate the vascularised organoids and boost the global effort to tackle heart disease. The method also has broader implications that could help researchers in other fields creating organoids such as kidneys and brains.

More information: Holly K. Voges et al, Vascular cells improve functionality of human cardiac organoids, Cell Reports (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.Celrep.2023.112322

Provided by QIMR Berghofer

Citation: Researchers create breakthrough in vascularized heart organoids (2023, April 27) retrieved 28 April 2023 from https://medicalxpress.Com/news/2023-04-breakthrough-vascularized-heart-organoids.Html

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OnlyFans Model And Kim Kardashian Lookalike, Christina Ashten Gourkani, Dies After Suffering Cardiac Arrest

The 34-year-old model died April 20 after suffering cardiac arrest following a "medical procedure that took a turn for the worse," her family announced Tuesday

Christina Ashten Gourkani — an OnlyFans model known for resembling Kim Kardashian — has died at the age of 34, her family revealed.

In a GoFundMe post, Gourkani's family shared that the content creator died April 20 after going into cardiac arrest.

"In the early morning hours at approximately 4:31am on 4/20/2023 our family received a tragic phone call from a family member who was frantically screaming and crying hysterically on the other end of the line....Ashten is dying...Ashten is dying," her loved ones wrote a statement Tuesday. "A phone call that instantly shattered our world and will forever haunt our family for the rest of our lives."

The family added that the model suffered from cardiac arrest following a "medical procedure that took a turn for the worse," which is now being investigated.

Cardiac arrest is the abrupt loss of heart function, resulting from a problem with the heart's electrical system, according to the Mayo Clinic. This disrupts the heart's pumping action and stops blood flow through the body.

It is often fatal if proper steps aren't taken immediately. CPR can improve the chances of survival until emergency medical assistance arrives. More than 356,000 cardiac arrests occur outside a hospital in the United States each year, according to the American Heart Association.

Related: Buffalo Bills' Damar Hamlin Suffered a Cardiac Arrest — Here's How That's Different From a Heart Attack

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Gourkani's family is now raising money to cover her medical and funeral costs, garnering more than $4,000 as of Wednesday. They said they are "grateful" for the support they've received and said Gourkani "will forever be our guardian angel."

"If you knew Ashten you knew that everyone mattered to her. She was such a caring and loving free spirit that always took the time to bring a smile to anyone's face she crossed paths with," the statement said. "She was the kind of person that would kneel down and talk to children at eye level, she searched for the lonely person in the corner and made them feel special as she has such a gift of connecting with people.

"On many occasions I've seen her turn her adversaries into life long friends just after 10 seconds of pouring her charismatic joy, positive energy and her beautiful smile that she gave to those around her," her family continued. "Ashten's spirit is a light that will forever carry on to her loved ones around her and those that she has left behind."

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