Scientists say they have used stem cells to grow human heart tissue that contracted spontaneously in a petri dish - marking progress in the quest to manufacture transplant organs.
A team from the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, used induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells generated from human skin cells to create precursor heart cells called MCPs.
The heart cells were attached to a mouse heart "scaffold", from which they grew and developed into heart muscle, researchers wrote in the journal Nature Communications on Tuesday.
After 20 days of blood supply, the reconstructed mouse organ "began contracting again at the rate of 40 to 50 beats per minute", said a University of Pittsburgh statement.
"It is still far from making a whole human heart," added senior researcher Lei Yang.
Ways have to be found to make the heart contract strongly enough to pump blood effectively and to rebuild the heart's electrical conduction system.
"However, we provide a novel resource of cells - iPS cell-derived MCPs - for future heart tissue engineering," Yang told AFP by email.
"We hope our study would be used in the future to replace a piece of tissue damaged by a heart attack, or perhaps an entire organ, in patients with heart disease."
