New clues on how the heart makes arteries.

A team of researchers at the Max Delbruck Center in Berlin has discovered how new arteries form in the heart, which could improve therapies for regenerating heart muscle after a heart attack or stroke. The researchers found that pre-arterial cells, which develop from specialized "tip cells," play a major role in growing new arteries. This finding challenges previous beliefs about how arteries develop and opens up possibilities for developing treatments that stimulate regenerative pathways to reverse heart muscle damage. The study was supported by the DZHK (Deutsches Zentrum fur Herz-Kreislauf-Forschung). [Extracted from the article]