The researchers also discovered something that could be interpreted as an early warning sign of heart failure. Apparently, pacemaker cells release the neurotransmitter glutamate, a process that has not been previously described.Īnother important finding of the study is the spatial resolution of immune cells in the heart: plasma cells in the epicardium, the outermost layer of the heart, form immune niches that may contribute to the defense against infection. It turns out that glial cells are part of the heart's conduction system and communicate with pacemaker cells through previously unknown signalling pathways. Glial cells are mainly found in the brain, where they support nerve cells, but have rarely been studied in the heart. The researchers made an unexpected discovery: pacemaker cells work together with neighboring glial cells. If the conduction system is disturbed, the heart's rhythm becomes out of sync, which can lead to fatal cardiac arrhythmias. This includes pacemaker cells that generate electrical impulses and determine the heart rate. This can have significant consequences for the function of the heart," says Professor Norbert Hübner from the Max Delbrück Center, who is co-author of the study.įor the first time, the British-German team also profiled the cells of the cardiac conduction system. It affects whether a connective tissue cell talks to a heart muscle cell or an immune cell. "The spatial arrangement of cells in heart tissue is crucial.
Using spatial transcriptomics, they were able to understand where individual cells are located in the heart and how they communicate. The researchers used cutting-edge methods such as single-cell sequencing, which determined which genes are being read for each individual cell. The study included data from 22 organ donors aged 40 – 75 years. Norbert Hübner Co-author of the study and head of the Lab "Genetics and Genomics of Cardiovascular Diseases"
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