title: On the existence of cardiomesenchymal stem cells.
abstract: The most efficient cells for cardiac regeneration are myocardium-resident cardiac stem cells. However, the limited availability of these cells restricts their utility for cardiac cellular therapy. Mesenchymal stem cells can differentiate into a wide variety of tissues, but it is not simple to accurately direct cell differentiation into a specific lineage, such as cardiac tissue; this renders a low efficiency for cardiac regeneration therapy. Given the heterogeneity of mesenchymal stem cells, it may be possible to find specific stem cell subpopulations with a definite differentiation capacity toward cardiac lineage. A parameter to assess cardiac differentiation specificity could be surface marker expression; a population with an immunophenotype similar to cardiac stem cells may have a superior therapeutic value than unsorted mesenchymal stem cells. We hypothesize the existence of a cell line that combines the expression of cardiac stem cell surface markers with those of mesenchymal stem cells, a suitable name for this population is cardiomesenchymal stem cells (CMSC); such cells would be ideal for cardiac regeneration.
authors.affiliation: Molecular Biology Department, School of Medicine, Universidad Panamericana, Mexico.
authors.forename: José R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Navarro-Betancourt
authors.affiliation: Molecular Biology Department, School of Medicine, Universidad Panamericana, Mexico. Electronic address: shernand@up.edu.mx.
authors.forename: Salomón
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hernández
mesh_terms: D000954:Antigens, Surface / Q000378:metabolism; D002454:Cell Differentiation / Q000502:physiology; D019070:Cell Lineage / Q000502:physiology; D006321:Heart / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D016130:Immunophenotyping / Q000379:methods; D059630:Mesenchymal Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology* / Q000378:metabolism; D008955:Models, Cardiovascular; D009206:Myocardium / Q000166:cytology*; D012038:Regeneration / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D000954:Antigens, Surface