Cardiac repair by embryonic stem-derived cells.

Cell transplantation approaches offer the potential to promote regenerative growth of diseased hearts. It is well established that donor cardiomyocytes stably engraft into recipient hearts when injected directly into the myocardial wall. Moreover, the transplanted donor cardiomyocytes participate in a functional syncytium with the host myocardium. Thus, transplantation of donor cardiomyocytes resulted in at least partial restoration of lost muscle mass. It is also well established that embryonic stem (ES) cells differentiate into cells of ecto-, endo-, and mesodermal lineages when cultured under appropriate conditions in vitro. Robust cardiomyogenic differentiation was frequently observed in spontaneously differentiating ES cultures. Cellular, molecular and physiologic analyses indicated that ES-derived cells were bona fide cardiomyocytes, with in vitro characteristics typical for cells obtained from early stages of cardiac development. Thus, ES-derived cardiomyocytes constitute a viable source of donor cells for cell transplantation therapies.