Overactive immune cells can worsen heart failure, and targeting them may lead to new treatments

around 64 million people around the world They suffer from heart failure, and nearly half of them die within the first five years of diagnosis because there are no effective treatments to prevent the disease from getting worse.

Heart failure occurs when the heart is unable to pump blood decreases to less than 40%. Most available treatments tend to focus on reducing the effort required for the heart to pump blood, rather than treating the underlying causes of the disease. This is mostly because researchers still don’t know what causes heart failure and what makes it worse over time.

It turns out that the immune system, which is the body’s means of protecting against infections and diseases, may be responsible for this Worsening of heart failure.

T cells heal and damage

Over the past 13 years, I’ve been studying How T cells in the immune system behave during heart failure.

T cells help the body Healing from injuries and fighting infections. They do this by making proteins called anti-inflammatory cytokines that help close wounds, and recruiting or modifying other immune cells that kill invading pathogens.

However, when T cells are accidentally activated against the body’s own cells, it may occur Causes autoimmune diseases. For example, type 1 diabetes is caused by T cells attacking pancreatic cells, and psoriasis occurs when T cells are activated against skin cells.

T cells and heart failure

If T cells can help Heal things like wounds on the skinWhy are they unable to heal the heart? My team and me We have been working to answer this question.

In preliminary studies in mice, we found that a type of immune cell called helper T cells makes proteins called pro-inflammatory cytokines that Causing more damage to the heart During heart failure, which makes the disease worse.

In our most recent research, we studied failing hearts obtained from patients receiving a transplant or artificial pump. We found it T cells remain active in failing hearts And also turn on pro-inflammatory proteins that exacerbate heart damage instead of healing the heart.

We also found that the proteins inside the T cells of failing hearts are similar to the proteins in them T cells involved in autoimmune diseases. These parallels suggest that heart failure prompts T cells to behave similarly to those found in autoimmune diseases, rather than those that heal infections.

Heart failure and autoimmunity

How T cells are activated in the heart may contribute to worsening heart damage that leads to slow and sustained progression of the disease.

While the underlying mechanisms behind heart failure remain elusive, our findings suggest that viewing heart failure as an autoimmune condition could help lead to new treatments.

More research into how to prevent T cells from damaging the heart could provide a way to prevent worsening heart failure and save the lives of millions of patients.