A rare type of stem cell could hold the key to mending a broken heart.
Australian scientists have discovered a new type of stem cell in mouse hearts which they believe plays a vital role in maintaining the muscle and its vessels.
They hope the cells could one day be used to regenerate and repair the literally broken hearts of people who have suffered a heart attack or heart disease.
The scientists from the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute in Sydney and University of NSW made the discovery during a seven-year study of heart stem cells in mice.
Lead researcher professor Richard Harvey said it appeared the heart stem cells' main role was to replace damaged vessels.
"In an injury situation where many of the vessels are killed and great slabs of tissue die, like in a heart attack, you need to replace muscle and vessels," he said.
"We think these cells are intimately involved in the regeneration of the heart and replacement of the old heart tissue as the organism ages."
Heart disease is the leading cause of death in Australia, accounting for 16 per cent of all deaths in 2009.
Drugs used to treat the disease and heart attacks aim to protect the muscle from working too hard.
But stem cell therapies offer the potential to regenerate damaged or diseased heart muscle and tissue.
Separate research carried out in the United States recently found when bone marrow stem cells were injected into adults they successfully replaced damaged heart muscle and got it to pump better.
Prof Harvey said the heart stem cells discovered in Australia had the potential to provide even better results.
The newly-discovered cells work in a similar fashion to bone marrow stem cells - which help repair damaged tissue in several different organs - but are specifically dedicated to keeping the heart healthy.
Prof Harvey believed the heart cells could one day be combined with other stem cells in a new type of regeneration therapy to treat damaged hearts.
Currently, stem cells are mainly used after being extracted from the body and grown in a laboratory before they are injected back into a patient to repair a damaged or diseased organ.
However, Prof Harvey said the discoveries about how the heart stem cells work could help scientists determine the best way to stimulate them in the body so they could race directly to damaged areas and repair them.
The Australian researchers plan to carry out more studies to see if human hearts contain the same type of stem cells found in mice. If so, they plan to test the cells in animals before carrying out clinical trials with heart patients.
The seven-year Australian research project was published in the journal Cell Stem Cell on Friday.
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