Potentiating the naturally occurring process for repair of damaged heart.

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)

This article reviews the current progresses in application of both exogenous and endogenous progenitor cells/stem cells for cardiac repair, and the current understanding of the naturally-occurring process for physiological myocyte turnover and possibly cardiac repair. In particular the development of methods for potentiating the naturally-occurring mechanism for substantial repair of pathologically damaged cardiac tissues is discussed. In the last decade, tremendous efforts to identify both exogenous and endogenous progenitor cells/stem cells possessing capacities of differentiating into cardiac lineages have been made for potential cardiac repair. Although many impressive progresses have been made in the application of differently sourced progenitor cells/stem cells, such as embryonic stem cells (ESCs), induced pluripotent stem cell (iPS), bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), skeletal myoblasts (SMs), umbilical cord blood cells (UCBs), residential cardiac stem cells (CSCs), cardiac resident fibroblasts (CRFs), or adipose tissue-derived stem cells (ASCs) for repair of damaged heart, however, inevitable controversies exist concerning: (i) the immune compatibility of the exogenous donor progenitors/stem cells, (ii) the tumorigenicity with ESCs and iPS, and (iii) the efficiency of these exogenous or endogenous progenitors/ stem cells to acquire cardiac lineages to re

Evidence level

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

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