Does a nanoengineered electroconductive collagen-based cardiac patch containing spherical nanogold improve cardiac function and tissue repair in an infarcted myocardium model?
Incorporating electroconductive properties via spherical nanogold into a collagen-based cardiac patch improves its therapeutic potential for myocardial infarction repair in preclinical models.
We have prepared and tested in vivo a novel nanoengineered hybrid electroconductive cardiac patch for treating the infarcted myocardium. Of the prepared and tested patches, only those containing spherical nanogold were able to increase connexin-43 expression in neonatal rat cardiomyocytes cultured under electrical stimulation. In vivo data indicated that only nano-gold-containing patches were able to recover cardiac function. Histological analysis also revealed that connexin-43 levels and blood vessel density were increased, while the scar size was reduced for animals that received the nanogold patch. Thus, our study indicates that the incorporation of electroconductive properties into a collagen-based cardiac patch can improve its therapeutic potential for treating myocardial infarction.
Hosoyama et al. (Mon,) studied this question.