Mobilizing cells to the injured myocardium

Fetal cells traffic to injured maternal myocardium and undergo cardiac differentiation.

RATIONALE Fetal cells enter the maternal circulation during pregnancy and may persist in maternal tissue for decades as microchimeras. OBJECTIVE Based on clinical observations of peripartum cardiomyopathy patients and the high rate of recovery they experience from heart failure, our objective was to determine whether fetal cells can migrate to the maternal heart and differentiate to cardiac c...

Clinical/Translational Research Fetal Cells Traffic to Injured Maternal Myocardium and Undergo Cardiac Differentiation

Mobilizing endothelial progenitor cells.

Mobilization of endogenous endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) from the bone marrow may be an alternative way to increase neovascularization and may be used as therapeutic option for the treatment of ischemic cardiovascular diseases. In this review, we discuss the EPC mobilizing effects of pro-inflammatory cytokines such as granolocyte monocyte colony-stimulating factor and granulocyte colony-s...

HYPOVENTILATION PRIOR TO ISCHEMIA PRECONDITIONS RAT MYOCARDIUM

Repetitive episodes of brief regional ischemia have been shown to reduce the severity of life-threatening ventricular anhythrnias and infarct size that occur during prolonged occlusion of the coronary artery. This phenomenon is known as ischemic preconditioning. During studies in anesthetized, open chest Wistar rats, we accidentally observed that poorly ventilated animals had a reduced seve...

Targeted delivery of thymosin beta 4 to the injured myocardium using CREKA-conjugated nanoparticles

PURPOSE Thymosin beta 4 (Tβ4) has multiple beneficial facets for myocardial injury, but its efficiency is limited by the low local concentration within the infarct. Here, we established a Tβ4 delivery system for cardiac repair based on the interaction between the abundant fibrin in the infarct zone and the fibrin-targeting moiety clot-binding peptide cysteine-arginine-glutamic acid-lysine-alani...