Intramyocardial transplantation and tracking of human mesenchymal stem cells in a novel intra-uterine pre-immune fetal sheep myocardial infarction model: a proof of concept study.

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

• Level A · Stronger Clinical Evidence
• Level B · Emerging clinical evidence with positive signals
• Level C · Early human research exploring benefits
• Level D · Scientific groundwork from lab and animal studies
• Emerging · Emerging topic under active research

Abstract (original English)

Although stem-cell therapies have been suggested for cardiac-regeneration after myocardial-infarction (MI), key-questions regarding the in-vivo cell-fate remain unknown. While most available animal-models require immunosuppressive-therapy when applying human cells, the fetal-sheep being pre-immune until day 75 of gestation has been proposed for the in-vivo tracking of human cells after intra-peritoneal transplantation. We introduce a novel intra-uterine myocardial-infarction model to track human mesenchymal stem cells after direct intra-myocardial transplantation into the pre-immune fetal-sheep. Thirteen fetal-sheep (gestation age: 70-75 days) were included. Ten animals either received an intra-uterine induction of MI only (n = 4) or MI+intra-myocardial injection (IMI;n = 6) using micron-sized, iron-oxide (MPIO) labeled human mesenchymal stem cells either derived from the adipose-tissue (ATMSCs;n = 3) or the bone-marrow (BMMSCs;n = 3). Three animals received an intra-peritoneal injection (IPI;n = 3; ATMSCs;n = 2/BMMSCs;n = 1). All procedures were performed successfully and follow-up was 7-9 days. To assess human cell-fate, multimodal cell-tracking was performed via MRI and/or Micro-CT, Flow-Cytometry, PCR and immunohistochemistry. After IMI, MRI displayed an estimated amount of 1×10(5)-5×10(5) human cells within ventricular-wall corresponding to the injection-sites which was fu

Evidence level

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

Browse all related research

Filter the research library by this study's title keywords, author, or publication year.