In the last few years we have witnessed one of most extraordinary revolutions in cardiovascular medicine, namely, an explosion of basic and clinical studies that support the notion that the diseased heart can be repaired by administration of stem cells, resulting in formation of functional new myocytes and vessels. Although the mechanism by which cell therapy improves cardiac function and anato...

Neufeld Cardiac Research Institute, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel Abstract Resident cardiac stem/progenitor cells are implicated in cell replacement, repair and maintenance of the myocardium. These cells are already committed to a specific cardiomyogenic pathway. Stimulation of these cells in injured hearts can open new options in cardiovascular regenerative...

The transcription factor Nkx2.5 and the intermediate filament protein desmin are simultaneously expressed in cardiac progenitor cells during commitment of primitive mesoderm to the cardiomyogenic lineage. Up-regulation of Nkx2.5 expression by desmin suggests that desmin may contribute to cardiogenic commitment and myocardial differentiation by directly influencing the transcription of the nkx2....

ISL1 is expressed in cardiac progenitor cells and plays critical roles in cardiac lineage differentiation and heart development. Cardiac progenitor cells hold great potential for clinical and translational applications. However, the mechanisms underlying ISL1 function in cardiac progenitor cells have not been fully elucidated. Here we uncover a hierarchical role of ISL1 in cardiac progenitor ce...

Myocardial infarction rapidly depletes the endogenous cardiac progenitor cell pool, and the inefficient recruitment of exogenously administered progenitor cells limits the effectiveness of cardiac cell therapy. Recent reports indicate that interactions between the CXC chemokine stromal cell-derived factor 1 and its receptor CXC chemokine receptor 4 (CXCR4) critically mediate the ischemia-induce...

Stem cells (SCs) have special potency to differentiate into different types of cells, especially cardiomyocytes. In order to demonstrate the therapeutic applications of these cells, various investigations are recently being developed. Cardiac progenitor cells are endogenous cardiac SCs that found to express tyrosine kinase receptors, c-Kit and other stemness features in adult heart, contributin...

Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the United States and Europe. In recent years, the understanding that regenerative processes exist at the level of the myocardium, has placed stem cell research at center stage in cardiology. A stem cell is a cell that has the ability to divide (self replicate) for indefinite periods often throughout the life of the ...