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Published on: December 2, 2016
Cardiac Remodeling and Repair: Recent Approaches, Advancements, and Future Perspective
Perwez Alam1, Bryan D Maliken2, Shannon M Jones1
1Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45267, USA.
Insights
Adult heart cells (cardiomyocytes) do not regenerate well after injury, leading to heart failure. This review explores cell-based and cell-free therapies for cardiac repair, highlighting current progress and challenges.
Area of Science:
- Cardiovascular biology
- Regenerative medicine
- Cardiac pathology
Background:
- Limited proliferation of adult mammalian cardiomyocytes post-myocardial infarction causes adverse remodeling and heart failure.
- High morbidity and mortality associated with heart failure necessitate novel therapeutic strategies for cardiac repair.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review and discuss current cell-based and cell-free therapeutic approaches for cardiac repair.
- To highlight advancements, limitations, and future perspectives in myocardial regeneration.
Main Methods:
- Literature review of existing research on cardiac repair strategies.
- Analysis of cell-based and cell-free therapeutic interventions.
- Discussion of current advancements and challenges in the field.
Main Results:
- Various extrinsic strategies for myocardial regeneration show promise but lack clinical efficacy.
- Both cell-based and cell-free approaches are being investigated for cardiac repair.
- Significant limitations hinder the clinical translation of current therapeutic methods.
Conclusions:
- Developing effective therapeutics for cardiac repair remains a critical challenge.
- Further research is needed to overcome limitations in current cell-based and cell-free strategies.
- Future perspectives focus on enhancing the success of myocardial regeneration therapies.
Abstract:
The limited ability of mammalian adult cardiomyocytes to proliferate following an injury to the heart, such as myocardial infarction, is a major factor that results in adverse fibrotic and myocardial remodeling that ultimately leads to heart failure. The continued high degree of heart failure-associated morbidity and lethality requires the special attention of researchers worldwide to develop efficient therapeutics for cardiac repair. Recently, various strategies and approaches have been developed and tested to extrinsically induce regeneration and restoration of the myocardium after cardiac injury have yielded encouraging results. Nevertheless, these interventions still lack adequate success to be used for clinical interventions. This review highlights and discusses both cell-based and cell-free therapeutic approaches as well as current advancements, major limitations, and future perspectives towards developing an efficient therapeutic method for cardiac repair.
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