Vol.30 No.3 (2008 June): 317-322

Progress in Cardiac Stem or Progenitor Cells

Qing-Jian Han, Yao-Zhou Zhang*

(Institute of Biochemistry, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Hangzhou 310018, China)

Abstract The discovery of cardiac stem or progenitor cells (CSC/CPCs) has not only provided us an optimal cell type for curing heart disease, but made us realize that adult heart of mammalian was a self-renewing organ as well. Recently, different subsets of CSC/CPCs have been identified, furthermore, the physiological microenvironment where they resided has been studied intensively. In this paper, we will firstly review the phenotype and differential potential of different subpopulation of CSC/CPCs, the molecular mechanism that regulates their quiescence, self-renewal, migration, or differentiation in vivo, the origin of CSC/CPCs, and then give a brief summary on the research of cardiomyocytes derived from embryonic stem cells (ESCs). After all, in this review, we hope to provide a meaningful clue for the clinical application of stem cells to cardiac disease.

Key words cardiac stem or progenitor cells; cardiac stem cell niche; bone marrow-derived cells; embryonic stem cells

Received: November 29, 2007 Accepted: February 21, 2008
This work was supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program) (No.2005CB121006), the National Key Technologies R&D Program (No.2006BAI01B04), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.30670095), and the Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province (No.Z204267)
*Corresponding author. Tel/Fax: 86-571-86843198, E-mail: yaozhou@chinagene.com