Calming down white blood cells to improve heart attack recovery

Assessing the impact of blocking ectodomain shedding of L-selectin in myocardial infarction

White blood cells are essential for fighting infection and they can release powerful substances such as acids and molecules to help break down foreign cells. However, when white blood cells rush to help in the context of a heart attack, they release toxic substances and can cause irreversible damage to the heart muscle. This can lead to heart failure many years later. Calming down this aggressive white blood cell behaviour might improve the outcome for people after a heart attack. This project will look at whether blocking a molecule called L-selectin could make this happen. L-selectin is found on the surface of most white blood cells in the blood and is clipped off from the surface when the cells move through blood vessels into sites of damage. Dr Ivetic’s lab have engineered mice with a mistake, or mutation, in L-selectin, which means it can’t be clipped off. They will mimic the effects of a heart attack in mice to see whether the mice with the L-selectin mutation recover better than those without. If successful, the project will show whether L-selectin could be a good target for drugs to help people recover from a heart attack.