title: Cellular cardiomyoplasty: improvement of left ventricular function correlates with the release of cardioactive cytokines.
abstract: A growing number of studies are reporting beneficial effects of the transplantation of alleged cardiac stem cells into diseased hearts after myocardial infarction. However, the mechanisms by which transplanted cells might help to promote repair of cardiac tissue are not understood and might involve processes different from the differentiation of transplanted cells into cardiomyocytes. We have compared the effects exerted by skeletal myoblasts (which are not able to form new cardiomyocytes) and ESC-derived cardiomyocytes after implantation into infarcted mouse hearts by echocardiographic follow-up and histological analysis and related these effects to the release of cardioactive cytokines. We found that both cell types led to a long-lasting improvement of left ventricle function and to an improvement of tissue architecture. Since no relevant amounts of myoblast-derived cells were present in infarcted hearts 28 days after transplantation, we investigated the release of cytokines from implanted cells both before and after transplantation into infarcted hearts. ESC-derived cardiomyocytes and myoblasts secreted substantial amounts of interleukin (IL)-1alpha, IL-6, tumor necrosis factor-beta, and oncostatin M, which strongly supported survival and protein synthesis of cultured cardiomyocytes. We postulate that the beneficial effects of the transplantation of myoblasts and cardiomyocytes on heart function and morphology only partially (if at all) depend on the integration of transplanted cells into the myocardium but do depend on the release of a complex blend of cardioactive cytokines.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine III, Martin Luther University, Halle, Germany.
authors.forename: Henning
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ebelt
authors.forename: Mirco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Jungblut
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kubin
authors.forename: Sawa
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kostin
authors.forename: Antje
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Technau
authors.forename: Svetlana
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Oustanina
authors.forename: Sylvia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Niebrügge
authors.forename: Jürgen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lehmann
authors.forename: Karl
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Werdan
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Braun
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D009202:Cardiomyopathies / Q000628:therapy*; D016207:Cytokines / Q000378:metabolism*; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D004452:Echocardiography; D053595:Embryonic Stem Cells / Q000637:transplantation; D006801:Humans; D051379:Mice; D009203:Myocardial Infarction / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000473:pathology / Q000628:therapy*; D032383:Myocytes, Cardiac / Q000637:transplantation*; D033581:Stem Cell Transplantation; D016277:Ventricular Function, Left / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D016207:Cytokines