title: The influence of disease and age on human cardiac stem cells.
abstract: Recent studies have found that cardiac stem cells (CSCs) are present in the adult heart. CSCs play an important role in maintaining the balance of the number of myocardial cells. The purpose of this study was to examine characteristics of human CSCs and their correlation with clinical characteristics of patients. We collected heart auricles of 105 patients (age range, 1-78 years; mean, 55.6 ± 17.0 years) undergoing cardiac surgery to obtain CSCs. We assayed the percentage of c-kit positive (c-kit(+)) CSCs with flow cytometry. Plasma N(ɛ)-(carboxymethyl)lysine (CML) concentrations were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The percentage of c-kit(+) CSCs was 4.96 ± 3.12% (0.98-17.17%), and this was significantly negatively correlated with age, the presence of diabetes mellitus (DM) and coronary heart disease (CHD) (r values were -0.797 [P < 0.01], -0.500 [P < 0.01] and -0.250 [P = 0.011], respectively). The percentage of c-kit(+) CSCs was significantly negatively correlated with CML concentrations (r = -0.859, P < 0.01). The percentage of c-kit(+) CSCs decreases with ageing and is further decreased in patients with DM and/or CHD. Furthermore, plasma CML concentrations may have potential as an indicator of the number of c-kit(+) CSCs.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiology, Zhongda Hospital, Medical School, Southeast University, Nanjing, China.
authors.forename: Shengda
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiology, Zhongda Hospital, Medical School, Southeast University, Nanjing, China.
authors.forename: Gaoliang
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Zhongda Hospital, Medical School, Southeast University, Nanjing, China.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: He
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Zhongda Hospital, Medical School, Southeast University, Nanjing, China.
authors.forename: Zhiyong
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiology, Zhongda Hospital, Medical School, Southeast University, Nanjing, China.
authors.forename: Hongzeng
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiology, Zhongda Hospital, Medical School, Southeast University, Nanjing, China magenshan@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Genshan
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Ma
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003324:Coronary Artery Disease / Q000473:pathology* / Q000601:surgery; D048909:Diabetes Complications / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery; D003920:Diabetes Mellitus / Q000473:pathology*; D005434:Flow Cytometry; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008239:Lysine / Q000031:analogs & derivatives / Q000097:blood; D008875:Middle Aged; D009206:Myocardium / Q000166:cytology*; D032383:Myocytes, Cardiac / Q000378:metabolism; D019009:Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-kit / Q000378:metabolism; D013234:Stem Cells / Q000473:pathology / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: C048496:N(6)-carboxymethyllysine; D019009:Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-kit; D008239:Lysine
keywords: Age; Nɛ-(Carboxymethyl)lysine; cardiac stem cells; coronary heart disease; diabetes mellitus