Breast-feeding without risk for the heart

From a therapeutic point of view, blocking the 146a-microRNAs would enable mothers to breast-feed their babies without any risk despite the appearance of peripartum cardiomyopathy.  

“This is a good example of “translational research”, that is to say basic research which leads on to more applied research”, emphasizes Ingrid Struman. “From purely basic research into the mechanisms involved in angiogenesis, we managed to identify a biomarker that makes it possible to detect a disease and which can eventually serve as a therapeutic target for its eventual cure”.

As the discovery of microRNAs and the important role they play in biological processes is relatively recent, there are as yet no anti-microRNAs on the market. “The first anti-microRNAs are still at the clinical trials phase.  However, there has been a marked increase in the use of microRNAs as biomarkers. Their great advantage is that they are very stable. These are small RNAs protected by a vesicle called an exosome”, indicates Ingrid Struman. She explains that the type and structure of the medicinal products used to neutralize the different microRNAs identified up to the present are very similar. Once an anti-microRNA has been perfected and tested, it should be easy to rapidly create and produce other microRNAs-including the one involved in peripartum cardiomyopathy.