Researchers find that Insulin - like growth factor / Insulin - mediated induction of mesodermal differentiation aids the production
of cardiac progenitor cells from embryonic stem cells towards a strategy to boost cardiac cell production.
Discovered a series of signaling events beginning with the morphogen Sonic hedgehog (Shh) that are essential for guiding a population of late
cardiac progenitor cells in the outflow tract of the heart.
Specifically, we investigate the molecular events regulating developmental decisions that
instruct cardiac progenitor cells to adopt a cardiac cell fate and subsequently fashion a functioning heart.
Encouragingly, a population of
cardiac progenitor cells derived from endogenous cardiospheres (eCS) can differentiate into cardiomyocytes in vivo [1, 2] and may represent an enhanced stem cell strategy for myocardial regeneration.
A * STAR researchers and colleagues have developed a method to isolate and expand human heart stem cells, also known
as cardiac progenitor cells, which could have great potential for repairing injured heart tissue.
These so -
called cardiac progenitor cells naturally repair heart muscle — but they do so far too slowly «to cope with a catastrophic injury» like a heart attack, Marbán says.
Neocardiogenic substances are able to stimulate the formation of
cardiac progenitor cells which can differentiate into healthy heart tissue, and they include the following:
«
Cardiac progenitor cells could be ideal for heart regeneration,» said senior author Sheng Ding, PhD, a senior investigator at Gladstone.
The scientists isolated exosomes from
the cardiac progenitor cells, and tested their regenerative activity in rats with injured hearts.