Cardiosphere-derived cells (CDCs) have been shown to regenerate infarcted myocardium in patients after myocardial infarction (MI). However, whether the cells of the newly formed myocardium originate from the proliferation of adult cardiomyocytes or from the differentiation of endogenous stem cells remains unknown. Using genetic fate mapping to mark resident myocytes in combination with long-ter...

OBJECTIVE To investigate whether cardiac tissue extracts from rats could mimic the cardiac microenvironment and act as a natural inducer in promoting the differentiation of bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs) into cardiomyocytes. METHODS Three kinds of tissue extract or cell lysate [infarcted myocardial tissue extract (IMTE), normal myocardial tissue extract (NMTE) and cultured neonatal myocard...

BACKGROUND The aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR) is a ligand-activated transcription factor that regulates the expression of xenobiotic detoxification genes and is a critical mediator of gene-environment interactions. Many AHR target genes identified by genome-wide gene expression profiling have morphogenetic functions, suggesting that AHR may play a role in embryonic development. OBJECTIVES To...

Our previous study reported that microRNA-375 (miR-375) is significantly upregulated in ventricular septal myocardial tissues from 22‑week‑old fetuses with ventricular septal defect as compared with normal controls. In the present study, the specific effects of miR‑375 on P19 cell differentiation into cardiomyocyte‑like cells were investigated. Stable P19 cell lines overexpressing miR‑375 or co...

BACKGROUND The ability to derive human induced pluripotent stem (hiPS) cell lines by reprogramming of adult fibroblasts with a set of transcription factors offers unique opportunities for basic and translational cardiovascular research. In the present study, we aimed to characterize the cardiomyocyte differentiation potential of hiPS cells and to study the molecular, structural, and functional ...

Myocardial fibrosis is a common pathological feature of various terminal cardiovascular diseases. Progressive the basis for development and progression many cardiac arrhythmias heart failure. There are no effective reversal drugs myocardial due to lack understanding molecular mechanisms. Noncoding RNAs, class RNAs that do not function in coding proteins, have been found be intimately involved l...

INTRODUCTION During vertebrate embryonic development, heart progenitors acquire the potential to subsequently differentiate as cardiomyocytes in the myocardium and form the functional heart muscle (Mohun et al., 2000; Mohun et al., 2003; Nakajima et al., 2009). Identifying how these cardiac progenitors are controlled and the source of signals regulating differentiation is of fundamental importa...

Temporally controlled mechanisms that define the unique features of ventricular and atrial cardiomyocyte identities are essential for the construction of a coordinated, morphologically intact heart. We have previously demonstrated an important role for nkx genes in maintaining ventricular identity, however, the specific timing of nkx2.5 function in distinct cardiomyocyte populations has yet to ...

Heart development requires a precise temporal regulation of gene expression in cardiomyoblasts. Therefore, the transcriptional changes differentiating cells can lead to congenital heart diseases. Although genetic mutations underlie most these alterations, exposure environmental contaminants, such as bisphenol A (BPA), has been recently considered risk factor well. In this study we investigated ...

Based on extensive preclinical data, glycogen synthase kinase-3 (GSK-3) has been proposed to be a viable drug target for a wide variety of disease states, ranging from diabetes to bipolar disorder. Since these new drugs, which will be more powerful GSK-3 inhibitors than lithium, may potentially be given to women of childbearing potential, and since it has controversially been suggested that lit...