Using iPS cells from a rare patient with severe heart disease that causes arrhythmias due to genetic abnormalities, a group of American universities have found that over-the-counter cough medicines may work for the disease, a group of American universities have announced.
It may be applicable to other diseases that cause arrhythmia, and we are proceeding with research.
This research was conducted by a group of Dr. Masayuki Yazawa of Columbia University and others, and was published in a related journal of the scientific journal "Nature".
The research group created iPS cells from the skin cells of patients with "Timothy syndrome," an extremely rare disease that often causes arrhythmias due to genetic abnormalities and often dies at an early age, and transformed them into cardiomyocytes.
The myocardial cells of this disease move in an irregular rhythm, but when a drug sold as a cough or a therapeutic drug such as depression is applied, the rhythm becomes regular after about 2 hours.
He said that when he administered a coughing drug to mice that developed the disease, he found that it could improve heart movement and improve the symptoms of arrhythmia.
This drug is also effective in "Long QT Syndrome," a congenital heart disease that causes arrhythmia and is said to have 20,000 patients in Japan.
Dr. Yazawa said, "By using iPS cells, research on rare intractable diseases that have been slow to progress will progress, and it may be useful for the treatment of diseases that have many patients. Effects on organs and nerves in experiments I would like to identify this and connect it to clinical trials for administration to patients. "