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Updated: Mar 25, 2026
Identification Of Erythromyeloid Progenitors And Their Progeny In The Mouse Embryo By Flow Cytometry
Published on: July 17, 2017
Macrophage precursor cells from the left atrial appendage of the heart spontaneously reprogram into a C-kit+/CD45-
Jussi V Leinonen1, Avishag Korkus-Emanuelov1, Yochai Wolf2
1Cardiovascular Research Centre, Heart Institute, Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Centre, 91120 Jerusalem, Israel.
Background:
The developmental origin of the c-kit expressing progenitor cell pool in the adult heart has remained elusive. Recently, it has been discovered that the injured heart is enriched with c-kit(+) cells, which also express the hematopoietic marker CD45.
Methods And Results:
In this study, we characterize the phenotype and transcriptome of the c-kit+/CD45+/CD11b+/Flk-1+/Sca-1±(B-type) cell population, originating from the left atrial appendage. These cells are defined as cardiac macrophage progenitors. We also demonstrate that the CD45+ progenitor cell population activates heart development, neural crest and pluripotency-associated pathways in vitro, in conjunction with CD45 down-regulation, and acquire a c-kit+/CD45-/CD11b-/Flk-1-/Sca-1+ (A-type) phenotype through cell fusion and asymmetric division. This putative spontaneous reprogramming evolves into a highly proliferative, partially myogenic phenotype (C-type).
Conclusions:
Our data suggests that A-type cells and cardiac macrophage precursor cells (B-type) have a common lineage origin, possibly resolving some current conundrums in the field of cardiac regeneration.
