Cell sheet transplantation for heart tissue repair.

Cell transplantation is attracting considerable attention as the next-generation therapy for treatment of cardiovascular diseases. We have developed cell sheet engineering as a type of scaffold-less tissue engineering for application in myocardial tissue engineering and the repair of injured heart tissue by cell transplantation. Various types of cell sheet transplantation have improved cardiac function in animal models and clinical settings. Furthermore, cell-based tissue engineering with human induced pluripotent stem cell technology is about to create thick vascularized cardiac tissue for cardiac grafts and heart tissue models. In this review, we summarize the current cardiac cell therapies for treating heart failure with cell sheet technology and cell sheet-based tissue engineering.