TRoMBONE · Therapy for regeneration of Heart Muscle based on targeted delivery of exosomes

Therapy for regeneration of Heart Muscle based on targeted delivery of exosomes

Worldwide, 26 million people suffer from heart failure (HF) with 3.6 million newly diagnosed every year solely in Europe. Heart transplantation remains the only treatment capable of addressing the fundamental problem, in spite of important advances in pharmacologic therapy, invasive treatments (e.g. revascularization) and device therapy. Cell-based therapies have shown promising results on improving heart function but the poor survival and/or engraftment hinder their clinical efficacy. Additionally, identification of the cell type(s) to use remains an unresolved issue with bone marrow stem cells and different populations of cardiac stem cells being the most commonly used. Exosomes is a good alternative to cell therapies for regeneration of injured myocardial tissue, e.g. after myocardial infarction. These vesicles, with a diameter of 50-200 nm, are secreted by cells, contain proteins, lipids, RNA, and are thought to play an important role in intercellular communication. Importantly, exosomes collected from stem cells and their progenies seem to represent a significant component of their paracrine effect after transplantation in the context of therapeutic angiogenesis and myocardial infarction. The translation of this therapy to patients will require the (i) development of platforms for the sufficient delivery of exosomes into the heart and (ii) enhancement of the regenerative potential of exosomes. The main objective of the current project is to develop an effective strategy to deliver exosomes by intravenous (IV) injection into the heart (targeting) and to maximize exosome regenerative potential (bioactivity). Therefore, the project aims to develop a non-cellular-based therapy to regenerate the heart after infarction based on the targeted delivery of exosomes.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union