Somatic Cell Reprogramming into Cardiovascular Lineages.
Ischemic cardiac disease is the leading cause of death in the developed world. The inability of the adult mammalian heart to adequately repair itself has motivated stem cell researchers to explore various strategies to regenerate cardiomyocytes after myocardial infarction. Over the past century, progressive gains in our knowledge about the cellular mechanisms governing fate determination have led to recent advances in cellular reprogramming. The identification of specific factors capable of inducing pluripotent phenotype in somatic cells as well as factors that can directly reprogram somatic cells into cardiomyocytes suggests the potential for these approaches to translate into clinical therapies in the future. Although conceptually appealing, the field of cell lineage reprogramming is in its infancy, and further research will be needed to improve the efficiency of the reprogramming process and the fidelity of the reprogrammed cells to their in vivo counterpart.
Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
Jenny X
JX
Chen
Stanford Cardiovascular Institute, Stanford, CA, USA.
Karolina
K
Plonowska
Stanford Cardiovascular Institute, Stanford, CA, USA Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Department of Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA smwu@stanford.edu.
Sean M
SM
Wu
cardiomyopathies; cardiomyopathy; heart disease; stem cells therapy