The hearts of lower vertebrates such as fish and salamanders display scarless regeneration following injury, although this feature is lost in adult mammals. The remarkable capacity of the neonatal mammalian heart to regenerate suggests that the underlying machinery required for the regenerative process is evolutionarily retained. Recent studies highlight the epicardial covering of the heart as ...

Heart failure is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. The current strategies for treatment are limited and new therapeutic approaches are needed. This review describes research performed in animal models of cardiac disease and clinical trials and discusses the mechanisms involved in possible beneficial effects of cell therapy. Cell therapy is a promising strategy to treat heart...

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have emerged as important modulators of cardiovascular biology, repair, and regeneration. miRNAs posttranscriptionally regulate the expression of a network of proteins and consequently, cardiovascular development. miRNA targeting has been shown to: (i) improve the cardiac repair capacity of patient-derived circulating or bone marrow–derived mononuclear cells (BMCs); (ii) indu...

BACKGROUND Stem cells for cardiac repair have shown promise in preclinical trials, but lower than expected retention, viability, and efficacy. Encapsulation is one potential strategy to increase viable cell retention while facilitating paracrine effects. METHODS AND RESULTS Human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSC) were encapsulated in alginate and attached to the heart with a hydrogel patch in a r...

Cellular transplantation has been employed for several years to deliver donor cardiomyocytes to normal and injured hearts. Recent reports of a variety of stem cells with apparent cardiomyogenic potential have raised the possibility of cell transplantation-based therapeutic interventions for heart disease. Here we review the preclinical studies demonstrating that intracardiac transplantation of ...

INTRODUCTION Being a unique diagnostic technique, transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) has influenced many different aspects of cardiac surgery including valve repair surgery. The cost-effectiveness of this method however is questioned considering the conditions of every region and country. In this study we aimed at answering the question if utilizing TEE throughout valve repair surgery could...

Cardiac tamponade secondary to blunt cardiac injury is an extremely serious and life-threatening condition that the emergency physician is required to make definitive and appropriate management and resuscitation. Although blunt cardiac injury includes a wide spectrum of pathological conditions, cardiac tamponade due to blunt trauma is rarely seen because most of the patients with cardiac ruptur...

Objective(s):Although previous studies have confirmed the beneficial effects of human umbilical cord matrix stem cell (hUCM) transplantation post myocardial infarction (MI), but this stem cell resource has no potential to induce angiogenesis. In order to achieve the process of angiogenesis and cardiomyocyte regeneration, two required factors for cardiac repair agents were examined namely; hUCM ...

BACKGROUND Macrophages and Wnt proteins (Wnts) are independently involved in cardiac development, response to cardiac injury, and repair. However, the role of macrophage-derived Wnts in the healing and repair of myocardial infarction (MI) is unknown. We sought to determine the role of macrophage Wnts in infarct repair. METHODS AND RESULTS We show that the Wnt pathway is activated after MI in ...

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) repair infarcted heart through paracrine mechanism. We sought to compare the effectiveness of MSCs and MSC-derived exosomes (MSC-Exo) in repairing infarcted hearts and to identify how MSC-Exo mediated cardiac repair is regulated. In a rat myocardial infarction model, we found that MSC-Exo inhibited cardiac fibrosis, inflammation, and improved cardiac function. The ...