Preventing heart cell suicide to limit the damage of a heart attack

Gasdermin D: A novel target for dual protection against acute and chronic effects of cardiac ischaemia and reperfusion injury?

London based researchers are testing a drug hoped to limit heart damage caused by a heart attack. Every day in the UK, more than 500 people have a heart attack. During a heart attack, some heart cells die. This can cause long-term life-threatening problems for heart attack survivors, such as heart failure. Not all heart cells die in the same way. Some undergo a kind of cell suicide, called pyroptosis. These researchers want to prevent this process to reduce the lasting damage that heart attacks can cause. Recently, a protein called gasdermin D was shown to be necessary for cells to die by pyroptosis. This team has laboratory mice that have been genetically engineered to lack gasdermin D. They already have exciting preliminary data that these mice are more resistant to heart attack damage, and now they want to find out more. In this project they will extend their studies to see if the mice have longer-term protection against heart attack damage, and to understand how this protection works. Importantly, a drug is currently under investigation which has been shown to stop gasdermin D from working. They will test whether this drug can protect the hearts of mice will also test it on human muscle samples. It is hoped that, in future, the drug may protect the hearts of patients experiencing a heart attack.