Using biomaterials to improve the efficacy of cell therapy following acute myocardial infarction

Cardiovascular cell therapy has the potential to improve left ventricular (LV) function and alter the course of adverse LV remodeling following acute myocardial infarction (AMI). However, current therapy using autologous intracoronary bone marrow mononuclear cells results in only minimal recovery of LV function. A major impediment appears to be limited retention and engraftment of the transplanted cells, in part due to loss of the extracellular matrix (ECM) following AMI that can lead to apoptosis of the delivered cells through the mechanism of anoikis. Recent pre-clinical studies suggest that the delivery of ECM surrogates to the infarct zone following AMI significantly improves LV function through multiple mechanisms. The use of ECM surrogates in conjunction with stem cell administration may represent a new paradigm for cardiac repair following AMI. This review discusses the potential use of biologically based ECM surrogates in the clinical setting following STEMI.