When it comes to love, there is no real cure for a broken heart. But new research from the University of Pittsburgh found that regenerating actual heart tissue is possible.

Extracellular matrices (ECM) found in zebrafish were successfully transmitted into adult mouse hearts to help them regenerate heart tissue after acute MIs.

These promising findings suggest a way to overcome heart disease, which remains the leading cause of death for men and women in the U.S.

Yadong Wang, the William Kepler Whiteford Professor in Bioengineering in the Swanson School of Engineering and the principal investigator of the Biomaterials Foundry at Pitt, lead the study. Along with his team, Wang separated ECM from the zebrafish cells, so the recipient mouse heart would not reject treatment. This was achieved by freezing zebrafish cardiac tissue, which induced decellularization. The ECM was then injected into the hearts of mice with damaged heart muscles.

"It's difficult to inject foreign cells into a body because the body will recognize them as foreign and reject them; that's not the case with ECM," Wang said. Wang explained that, because ECMs are composed of collagen, elastin, carbohydrates and signaling molecules and have no cell surface markers, DNA or RNA from the donor, the recipient is less likely to reject the treatment.

The restored function started almost immediately, according to the team. Healing was observed as early as five days post treatment. Within a week, the treated hearts were beating more strongly than the hearts of the control group.

Researchers tested the effectiveness of ECM from normal zebrafish and from zebrafish with damaged hearts, in which the ECM had already begun the healing process. They found that while both types of ECM were effective in repairing damage to the mice hearts, the ECM obtained from the zebrafish hearts that were healing were even more potent in restoring heart function in the mice.

The study was published in the Nov. 18 issue of Science Advances.