Cardiac stem cell research: an elephant in the room?
Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the industrialized world, and stem cell therapy seems to be a promising treatment for injured cardiac tissue. To reach this goal, the scientific community needs to find a good source of stem cells that can be used to obtain new myocardium in a very period range of time. Since there are many ethical and technical problems with using embryonic stem cells as a source of cells with cardiogenic potential, many laboratories have attempted to isolate potential cardiac stem cells from several tissues. The best candidates seem to be cardiac "progenitor" and/or "stem" cells, which can be isolated from subendocardial biopsies from the same patient or from embryonic and/or fetal myocardium. Regardless of the technique used to isolate and characterize these cells, it appears that the different cells isolated from adult myocardium to date are all phenotypic variations of a unique cell type that expresses several markers, such as c-Kit, CD34, MDR-1, Sca-1, CD45, nestin, or Isl-1, in various combinations.
Di Felice
Valentina
V
Human Anatomy Section, Department of Experimental Medicine, University of Palermo, Via del Vespro 129, Palermo, Italy. vdfelice@inwind.it
De Luca
Angela
A
Colorito
Maria Luisa
ML
Montalbano
Antonella
A
Ardizzone
Nella Maria
NM
Macaluso
Filippo
F
Gammazza
Antonella Marino
AM
Cappello
Francesco
F
Zummo
Giovanni
G
D033041:Embryo Research; D053595:Embryonic Stem Cells / Q000502:physiology*; D006331:Heart Diseases / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D033581:Stem Cell Transplantation