GUWAHATI: A research team from the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, led by Dr. Rajkumar P. Thummer, Assistant Professor, Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering, along with his research scholar, Mr. Krishna Kumar Haridhasapavalan, has developed a “recombinant protein toolbox” comprising six special proteins that can be used to convert healthy skin cells or any somatic cells from an adult human body into heart cells, specifically cardiomyocytes. The heart cells created using this toolbox can have the same function as the original heart cells and can be used to regenerate damaged heart tissues. Importantly, this toolbox can facilitate the generation of autologous heart cells in a lab.
The only way to treat heart disease is with a new heart, but there aren’t enough hearts available for transplantation, and it can be hard to make sure the new heart is accepted by the body. Scientists around the world are studying ways to convert regular body cells into heart cells, which could help with regenerating damaged hearts. The IIT Guwahati team has successfully produced cell-permeant recombinant proteins that can convert skin cells to heart cells. A recombinant protein is a desired protein produced by engineered host cells in a laboratory using recombinant DNA technology. By exposing skin cells to these proteins, the IIT Guwahati researchers could ‘reprogram’ the cells and make them have the characteristics of heart cells. This process can be seen as “rewiring” the genetic programme of the skin cells to be more likes that of heart cells. To validate the biological activity of the recombinant fusion proteins, the team collaborated with Dr Vishwas Kaveeshwar from the Central Research Laboratory at SDM College of Medical Sciences and Hospital in Dharwad, Karnataka.
Explaining the details of their work, Dr. Rajkumar P. Thummer, Assistant Professor, Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering, IIT Guwahati, said, “Recombinant protein-based cellular reprogramming is a promising alternative and the safest approach among other available non-integration approaches. As these proteins do not modify or alter the genome of the cells, the cells generated using these reprogramming approaches have a high cell therapeutic value. Several challenges associated with the heterologous production of these recombinant proteins have been addressed in our six research publications in different journals.”
The researchers have recently shared their results on the development of cell- and nucleus-penetrating versions of six cardiac reprogramming transcription factors in numerous international peer-reviewed journals, including Molecular Biotechnology, Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, Bioprocess and Biosystems Engineering, Current Research in Biotechnology, Healthcare Research and Related Technologies Proceedings from NERC 2022, Scientific Reports, and Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology.
It is notable that Krishna Kumar Haridhasapavalan was honoured with the “Augmenting Writing Skills for Articulating Research (AWSAR) Award 2021” for his outstanding scientific writing, explaining this research. The award, which includes a prize of Rs 10,000, was given by DST, the Government of India, for his story titled “Love failure may or may not be fixed, but heart failure can definitely be fixed.” Researchers at IIT Guwahati produce cardiac proteins to fix a damaged heart, according to a press release.
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