Mesenchymal Stem Cell Insights: Prospects in Cardiovascular Therapy
Ischemic heart damage usually triggers cardiomyopathological remodeling and fibrosis, thus promoting the development of heart functional failure. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are a heterogeneous group of cells in culture, with multipotent and hypoimmunogenic characters to aid tissue
repair and avoid immune responses, respectively. Numerous experimental findings have proven the feasibility, safety, and efficiency of MSC therapy for cardiac regeneration. Despite that the exact mechanism remains unclear, the therapeutic ability of MSCs to treat ischemia heart diseases has
been tested in phase I/II clinical trials. Based on encouraging preliminary findings, MSCs might become a potentially efficacious tool in the therapeutic options available to treat ischemic and nonischemic cardiovascular disorders. The molecular mechanism behind the efficacy of MSCs on promoting
engraftment and accelerating the speed of heart functional recovery is still waiting for clarification. It is hypothesized that cardiomyocyte regeneration, paracrine mechanisms for cardiac repair, optimization of the niche for cell survival, and cardiac remodeling by inflammatory control are
involved in the interaction between MSCs and the damaged myocardial environment. This review focuses on recent experimental and clinical findings related to cellular cardiomyoplasticity. We focus on MSCs, highlighting their roles in cardiac tissue repair, transdifferentiation, the MSC niche
in myocardial tissues, discuss their therapeutic efficacy that has been tested for cardiac therapy, and the current bottleneck of MSC-based cardiac therapies.
Keywords: Cellular therapy; Differentiation; Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs); Myocardial infarction; Niche; Paracrine; Regeneration
Document Type: Research Article
Affiliations: Department of Life Science, Fu-Jen Catholic University, Xinzhuang District, New Taipei City, Taiwan
Publication date: 09 April 2014
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