title: Advances in cell transplantation therapy for diseased myocardium.
abstract: The overall objective of cell transplantation is to repopulate postinfarction scar with contractile cells, thus improving systolic function, and to prevent or to regress the remodeling process. Direct implantation of isolated myoblasts, cardiomyocytes, and bone-marrow-derived cells has shown prospect for improved cardiac performance in several animal models and patients suffering from heart failure. However, direct implantation of cultured cells can lead to major cell loss by leakage and cell death, inappropriate integration and proliferation, and cardiac arrhythmia. To resolve these problems an approach using 3-dimensional tissue-engineered cell constructs has been investigated. Cell engineering technology has enabled scaffold-free sheet development including generation of communication between cell graft and host tissue, creation of organized microvascular network, and relatively long-term survival after in vivo transplantation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, University of Helsinki Meilahti Hospital, P.O. Box 340, FIN-00029 HUS, Finland.
authors.forename: Outi M
authors.initials: OM
authors.lastname: Villet
authors.forename: Antti
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Siltanen
authors.forename: Tommi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Pätilä
authors.forename: M Ali A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Mahar
authors.forename: Antti
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Vento
authors.forename: Esko
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Kankuri
authors.forename: Ari
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Harjula