[Left ventricular heart aneurism--a new source of resident cardiac stem cells]

In the past few years it has been established that the heart contains a reservoir of stem and progenitor cells that have the ability to differentiate in vitro and in vivo toward vascular and cardiac lineages and that show cardiac regeneration potential in vivo following injection into the infracted myocardium. The aim of the present study was to characterize cardiac stem cells in the tissue of chronic left ventricular aneurism. It was shown that human c-kit positive cells were scattered in fibrous, muscle and adipose parts of aneurism tissue. C-kit positive cells localized mainly in fibrous tissue nearby large vessels, however, c-kit positive cells did not express endothelial, smooth muscle or cardiomyocyte cell markers. Co-localization experiments demonstrated that all c-kit positive cells were of non-hematopoietic origin, since they did not express markers such as CD34 and CD45. Majority of c-kit positive cells expressed MDR1, but showed no proliferation activity (Ki67). It thus appears that aneurism tissue could be an alternative source of autologous cardiac stem cells. However, their regeneration capacity should be further explored.