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Updated: Dec 17, 2025
Intramyocardial Cell Delivery: Observations in Murine Hearts
Published on: January 24, 2014
[Perspectives of cell therapy for myocardial infarction and heart failure based on cardiosphere cells]
K V Dergilev1, I D Vasilets1, Z I Tsokolaeva1,2
1National Medical Research Center for Cardiology.
Insights
Cardiospheres, a novel cell therapy approach, show promise for treating heart disease by improving stem cell integration and survival. This multicellular spheroid technology offers enhanced cardiac repair after injury.
Area of Science:
- Regenerative Medicine
- Cardiovascular Research
- Stem Cell Biology
Background:
- Cardiovascular diseases represent a major global health burden.
- Current stem cell therapies for cardiac repair show limited efficacy due to poor cell integration and survival.
- Multicellular spheroids offer a promising strategy to enhance cell viability and therapeutic potential.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review the methods for creating cardiospheres (cardiac spheroids).
- To discuss the directed regulation of cardiosphere properties and reparative potential.
- To summarize preclinical and clinical findings on cardiosphere use for heart disease treatment.
Main Methods:
- Formation of cardiospheres under low-adhesive conditions.
- Characterization of cardiospheres composed of myocardial progenitor cells and extracellular matrix.
- Analysis of data from preclinical and clinical studies.
Main Results:
- Cardiospheres model the natural cellular microenvironment, enhancing cell viability.
- Spontaneously forming 3D structures of heterogeneous myocardial progenitor cells show therapeutic potential.
- Review highlights methods for cardiosphere creation and property regulation.
Conclusions:
- Cardiosphere technology presents a significant advancement over traditional cell suspension transplantation.
- This approach overcomes limitations of cell integration and survival, offering improved cardiac repair.
- Cardiospheres hold considerable promise for the future treatment of heart diseases.
Abstract:
Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. In recent years, researchers are attracted to the use of cell therapy based on stem cell and progenitor cells, which has been a promising strategy for cardiac repair after injury. However, conducted research using intracoronary or intramyocardial transplantation of various types of stem/progenitor cells as a cell suspension showed modest efficiency. This is due to the low degree of integration and cell survival after transplantation. To overcome these limitations, the concept of the use of multicellular spheroids modeling the natural microenvironment of cells has been proposed, which allows maintaining their viability and therapeutic properties. It is of great interest to use so-called cardial spheroids (cardiospheres) spontaneously forming three-dimensional structures under low-adhesive conditions, consisting of a heterogeneous population of myocardial progenitor cells and extracellular matrix proteins. This review presents data on methods for creating cardiospheres, directed regulation of their properties and reparative potential, as well as the results of preclinical and clinical studies on their use for the treatment of heart diseases.
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