Nature 573, 430–433 (2019)

T cells can be programmed to eliminate pathology-causing cardiac fibroblasts after heart injury.

Following cardiac injury, pathological cardiac fibroblasts are activated and deposit extra cellular matrix proteins, resulting in fibrosis, which both negatively affects the heart’s physical properties and further signals cardiomyocytes, altering their function. Thus far, therapies have mostly aimed to reduce the rate of heart fibrosis.

Jonathan Epstein and his colleagues engineered T cells that identify the pathological fibroblasts using a protein unique to these cells. They show in mice that after heart injury, the engineered T cells can ablate the fibrosis-causing fibroblasts, improving cardiac function.