Hibernation molecule boosts therapeutic hypothermia

CHILLED-OUT mice could point the way to reduced heart-attack damage in humans.

Therapeutic hypothermia is already used to protect patients suffering injuries that restrict the flow of blood and oxygen to tissues, but cooling is slow and difficult, not least because the body resists it.

In tests on mice in which heart attacks were induced, Cheng Chi Lee at the University of Texas at Austin showed that a biomolecule called 5'-AMP, which helps suppress metabolism in hibernating mammals, could be used to help induce hypothermia and reduce heart tissue damage.

Untreated mice and those given 5'-AMP but artificially kept at normal temperatures suffered greater heart damage. Injected mice experienced a dramatic drop in metabolic rate, meaning they could be cooled faster and more safely than untreated mice (American Journal of Translational Research, vol 3, p 351).

"This advances the idea that 5'-AMP could be useful as an adjunct therapy to the body cooling already used to protect hearts from injury after heart attack or cardiac surgery," says Jeremy Pearson of the British Heart Foundation.

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