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Scientists have found a way to use spinach to build working human heart muscle, potentially solving a long-standing problem in efforts to repair damaged organs.

Their study, published this month by the journal Biomaterials, offers a new way to grow a vascular system, which has been a roadblock for tissue engineering.

Scientists have already created large-scale human tissue in a lab using methods like 3D printing, but it's been much harder to grow the small, delicate blood vessels that are vital to tissue health.

"The main limiting factor for tissue engineering ... is the lack of a vascular network," says study co-author Joshua Gershlak, a graduate student at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Massachusetts, in a video describing the study. "Without that vascular network, you get a lot of tissue death."

One of the defining traits of a leaf is the branching network of thin veins that delivers water and nutrients to its cells. Now, scientists have used plant veins to replicate the way blood moves through human tissue. The work involves modifying a spinach leaf in the lab to remove its plant cells, which leaves behind a frame made of cellulose.

"Cellulose is biocompatible [and] has been used in a wide variety of regenerative medicine applications, such as cartilage tissue engineering, bone tissue engineering, and wound healing," the authors write in their paper.

The team then bathed the remaining plant frame in live human cells, so that the human tissue grew on the spinach scaffolding and surrounded the tiny veins. Once they had transformed the spinach leaf into a sort of mini heart, the team sent fluids and microbeads through its veins to show that blood cells can flow through this system.

The eventual goal is to be able to replace damaged tissue in patients who have had heart attacks or who have suffered other cardiac issues that prevent their hearts from contracting. Like blood vessels, the veins in the modified leaves would deliver oxygen to the entire swath of replacement tissue, which is crucial in generating new heart matter.

The study team says the same methods could be used with different types of plants to repair a variety of tissues in the body. For instance, swapping out the cells in wood might one day help fix human bones.

"We have a lot more work to do, but so far this is very promising," study co-author Glenn Gaudette, also of WPI, says in a press statement. "Adapting abundant plants that farmers have been cultivating for thousands of years for use in tissue engineering could solve a host of problems limiting the field."

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Spinach Leaf Transformed Into Beating Human Heart Tissue

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Scientists have found a way to use spinach to build working human heart muscle, potentially solving a long-standing problem in efforts to repair damaged organs. Their study, published this month by the journal Biomaterials , offers a new way to grow a vascular system, which has been a roadblock for tissue engineering.

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Vegetables are good for your health, but now there's a whole new way that one veggie could help your heart: Spinach leaves can be used as a scaffold for beating human heart cells, a new study finds.

In several experiments, scientists grew beating human heart cells on spinach leaves by perfusing them with a detergent solution, which stripped them of their plant cells. This proof-of-concept study suggests that multiple spinach leaves could be used to grow layers of healthy heart muscle that could one day be used to treat heart attack patients, the researchers said.

"We have a lot more work to do, but so far this is very promising," Glenn Gaudette, the study's senior researcher and a professor of biomedical engineering at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Massachusetts, said in a statement. "Adapting abundant plants that farmers have been cultivating for thousands of years for use in tissue engineering could solve a host of problems limiting the field."

In addition, the researchers said they think they could deliver blood and oxygen to developing tissues by pouring fluids through the spinach leaves' veins. [ Spinach Leaf Transformed into Beating Heart Tissue | Video]

"When I looked at the spinach leaf, its stem reminded me of an aorta," said Joshua Gershlak, a graduate student of biomedical engineering at WPI and the study's lead researcher. "So I thought, let's perfuse [the fluids] right through the stem."

Spinach leaves make a good scaffold because once the plant cells are washed away, a cellulose structure remains, the researchers said.

"Cellulose is biocompatible [and] has been used in a wide variety of regenerative medicine applications, such as cartilage tissue engineering, bone tissue engineering and wound healing," the researchers wrote in the study.

A time lapse of a spinach leaf's transformation.

Credit: Worcester Polytechnic Institute

In addition to spinach leaves, the researchers also removed plant cells from parsley, Artemesia annua (sweet wormwood) and peanut hairy roots. Scaffolds from these plants, and perhaps others, could be helpful for other types of specialized tissue regeneration, they said.

Although spinach leaves have many veins, making them a well-suited scaffold for heart tissue, other plans show promise for other medical uses. Namely, the "cylindrical, hollow structure of the stem" of the jewelweed plant could be used as a graft for an artery, they said. In addition, wood from trees "might be useful in bone engineering," due in part to its strength, they wrote.

Plants such as these may provide economic and environmental advantages to the biomedical field.

"By exploiting the benign chemistry of plant tissue scaffolds, we could address the many limitations and high costs of synthetic, complex composite materials," the researchers wrote. Plants are easy to grow and are environmentally friendly.

However, it remains to be seen whether these spinach scaffolds are safe for human use, and whether some people might have an immune response to tissues grown on plant scaffolds.

The study is published in the May 2017 issue of the journal Biomaterials.

Original article on Live Science.

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Beating Human Heart Tissue Grown from Spinach Leaves

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Vegetables are good for your health, but now there's a whole new way that one veggie could help your heart: Spinach leaves can be used as a scaffold for beating human heart cells, a new study finds. In several experiments, scientists grew beating human heart cells on spinach leaves by perfusing them with a detergent solution, which stripped them of their plant cells.

# data[].attributes.body
-Scientists have grown beating human heart cells on spinach leaves by perfusing them with a detergent solution (which stripped them from their plant cells)

-Study suggest that multiple spinach leaves could be used to grow layers of healthy heart muscles that could one day be used to treat heart attack patients.

-It is still unsure if the use of spinach is safe for humans and if some people have an immunity.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Vegetables are good for your health, but now there's a whole new way that one veggie could help your heart: Spinach leaves can be used as a scaffold for beating human heart cells, a new study finds.

In several experiments, scientists grew beating human heart cells on spinach leaves by perfusing them with a detergent solution, which stripped them of their plant cells. This proof-of-concept study suggests that multiple spinach leaves could be used to grow layers of healthy heart muscle that could one day be used to treat heart attack patients, the researchers said.

"We have a lot more work to do, but so far this is very promising," Glenn Gaudette, the study's senior researcher and a professor of biomedical engineering at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Massachusetts, said in a statement. "Adapting abundant plants that farmers have been cultivating for thousands of years for use in tissue engineering could solve a host of problems limiting the field."

In addition, the researchers said they think they could deliver blood and oxygen to developing tissues by pouring fluids through the spinach leaves' veins. [ Spinach Leaf Transformed into Beating Heart Tissue | Video]

"When I looked at the spinach leaf, its stem reminded me of an aorta," said Joshua Gershlak, a graduate student of biomedical engineering at WPI and the study's lead researcher. "So I thought, let's perfuse [the fluids] right through the stem."

Spinach leaves make a good scaffold because once the plant cells are washed away, a cellulose structure remains, the researchers said.

"Cellulose is biocompatible [and] has been used in a wide variety of regenerative medicine applications, such as cartilage tissue engineering, bone tissue engineering and wound healing," the researchers wrote in the study.

A time lapse of a spinach leaf's transformation.

Credit: Worcester Polytechnic Institute

In addition to spinach leaves, the researchers also removed plant cells from parsley, Artemesia annua (sweet wormwood) and peanut hairy roots. Scaffolds from these plants, and perhaps others, could be helpful for other types of specialized tissue regeneration, they said.

Although spinach leaves have many veins, making them a well-suited scaffold for heart tissue, other plans show promise for other medical uses. Namely, the "cylindrical, hollow structure of the stem" of the jewelweed plant could be used as a graft for an artery, they said. In addition, wood from trees "might be useful in bone engineering," due in part to its strength, they wrote.

Plants such as these may provide economic and environmental advantages to the biomedical field.

"By exploiting the benign chemistry of plant tissue scaffolds, we could address the many limitations and high costs of synthetic, complex composite materials," the researchers wrote. Plants are easy to grow and are environmentally friendly.

However, it remains to be seen whether these spinach scaffolds are safe for human use, and whether some people might have an immune response to tissues grown on plant scaffolds.

The study is published in the May 2017 issue of the journal Biomaterials.

Original article on Live Science.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Beating Human Heart Tissue Grown from Spinach Leaves

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Vegetables are good for your health, but now there's a whole new way that one veggie could help your heart: Spinach leaves can be used as a scaffold for beating human heart cells, a new study finds. In several experiments, scientists grew beating human heart cells on spinach leaves by perfusing them with a detergent solution, which stripped them of their plant cells.