Promising drug for cancer, also reverses (in mice) myocardial overgrowth that threatens heart failure
Dr.Joseph Hill’s team from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center has shown that a histone deacetylase inhibitor (HDAC) currently being tested in clinical trials as an anti-cancer drug reverses the harmful effects of autophagy in mouse heart muscle cells. Autophagy is a natural process by which cells consume their own proteins to obtain the necessary resources during times of stress.
According to the authors of the study, HDAC could initiate a completely new treatment strategy for heart lesions caused by hypertension. Pathological changes are related to too much or too little intensity of autophagy – for example, with arterial hypertension, autophagy is excessive.
Scientists have just studied a strain of mice with excessive autophagy and an enlarged heart leading to heart failure. Administration of HDAC caused the heart to shrink to its correct size and function normally. The discovery is based on the work that Dr. Kern Wildenthal, once head of the University of Texas Southwestern, and now president of the Southwestern Medical Foundation, conducted over decades on yeast and mice.
The research is reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PAP)