Novel treatment for myocardial infarction uses nanovesicles to modulate immune response

Myocardial infarction is an ischemic heart disease in which the coronary arteries – the blood vessels that supply blood to the heart – become narrowed or blocked, resulting in insufficient blood supply to the heart muscle, which causes nutrient and oxygen deficiency in the myocardium, leading to poor heart function.

Dr. Yoon Ki Joung and Dr. Juro Lee of the Biomaterials Research Center at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), together with Prof. Hun-Jun Park and Dr. Bong-Woo Park of the Catholic University of Korea College of Medicine, have developed a new treatment for myocardial infarction that uses nanovesicles derived from fibroblasts with induced apoptosis to modulate the immune response.

The research team identified the possibility of treating severe myocardial infarction by reducing the inflammatory response in the heart muscle through a nanomedicine based on apoptotic cells, which are cells that commit suicide due to biochemical changes within them.

This response was achieved by attaching peptides specific to the site of ischemic myocardial infarction and substances specific to macrophage phagocytosis to the surface of fibroblasts. To this end, the team developed anti-inflammatory nanovesicles that can be delivered specifically to macrophages at the site of myocardial infarction.

"This is the first study to use nanovesicles produced from apoptosis-induced cells to treat myocardial infarction, and it has the advantage of being able to mass-produce them because it uses other cells rather than stem cells," said Dr. Yoon Ki Joung.

Image source: Korea Institute of Science and Technology.