The mouse as a model system to study cardiac regeneration.

Cardiomyocytes exhibit robust proliferative activity during development. After birth, cardiomyocyte proliferation is markedly reduced. Consequently, regenerative growth in the postnatal heart via cardiomyocyte proliferation (including, by inference, via proliferation of stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes) is limited and often insufficient to effect repair following injury. Here we review methodologies which employ the mouse as a model system to study cardiac regeneration, and in particular cardiomyocyte replenishment, in health and disease.