Stem cell sources for cardiac regeneration

Cell-based cardiac repair has the ambitious aim to replace the malfunctioning cardiac muscle developed after myocardial infarction, with new contractile cardiomyocytes and vessels. Different stem cell populations have been intensively studied in the last decade as a potential source of new cardiomyocytes to ameliorate the injured myocardium, compensate for the loss of ventricular mass and contractility and eventually restore cardiac function. An array of cell types has been explored in this respect, including skeletal muscle, bone marrow derived stem cells, embryonic stem cells (ESC) and more recently cardiac progenitor cells. The best-studied cell types are mouse and human ESC cells, which have undisputedly been demonstrated to differentiate into cardiomyocyte and vascular lineages and have been of great help to understand the differentiation process of pluripotent cells. However, due to their immunogenicity, risk of tumor development and the ethical challenge arising from their embryonic origin, they do not provide a suitable cell source for a regenerative therapy approach. A better option, overcoming ethical and allogenicity problems, seems to be provided by bone marrow derived cells and by the recently identified cardiac precursors. This report will overview current knowledge on these different cell types and their application in cardiac regeneration and address issues like implementation of delivery methods, including tissue engineering approaches that need to be developed alongside.