RATIONALE Recent work in animal models and humans has demonstrated the presence of organ-specific progenitor cells required for the regenerative capacity of the adult heart. In response to tissue injury, progenitor cells differentiate into specialized cells, while their numbers are maintained through mechanisms of self-renewal. The molecular cues that dictate the self-renewal of adult progenito...

Circulation Research Thematic Synopses: The goal of Thematic Synopses is to provide our readers with a concise but comprehensive overview of the work published in Circulation Research, which we hope will keep our readers abreast of recent scientific discoveries and facilitate discussion, interpretation, and integration of the findings. These collections of articles are organized thematically an...

Recent studies have questioned the accepted dogma that the regenerative capacity of the heart following injury is limited. Several apparently distinct populations of resident cardiac progenitor cells may have the potential to regenerate functional heart muscle. Despite this progress, the physiologic role and therapeutic potential of cardiac resident progenitor cells remain unclear.

Insight into the mechanisms underlying congenital heart defects and the use of stem cells for cardiac repair are major research goals in cardiovascular biology. In the early embryo, progenitor cells in pharyngeal mesoderm contribute to the rapid growth of the heart tube during looping morphogenesis. These progenitor cells constitute the second heart field (SHF) and were first identified in 2001...

Mammalian heart development requires precise allocation of cardiac progenitors. The existence of a multipotent progenitor for all anatomic and cellular components of the heart has been predicted but its identity and contribution to the two cardiac progenitor 'fields' has remained undefined. Here we show, using clonal genetic fate mapping, that Mesp1+ cells in gastrulating mesoderm are rapidly s...

Cardiomyocytes are principal cells in the heart. Earlier it was believed that cardiomyocytes cannot divide as these are terminally differentiated cells but latest research proved that these cells can divide and it has also been reported that there are also cardiac stem and progenitor cells in the heart. Cardiac stem cells and progenitor cells have a great potential for cellular therapy after my...

Formation of the heart requires the coordinated functions of cardiac myocytes, smooth muscle cells, endothelial cells, and connective tissue elements. Several recent studies now reveal that these different cell types arise from a common progenitor (). These findings raise interesting questions about the lineage relationships of cardiovascular progenitor cell populations and suggest possibilitie...

AIMS There is strong evidence supporting the claim that endogenous cardiac progenitor cells (CPCs) are key players in cardiac regeneration, but the anatomic source and phenotype of the master cardiac progenitors remains uncertain. Our aim was to investigate the different cardiac stem cell populations in the left atrial appendage (LAA) and their fates. METHODS AND RESULTS We investigated the C...

Multipotent cardiac progenitor cells are found in the fetal and adult heart of many mammalian species including humans and form as intermediates during the differentiation of embryonic stem cells. Despite similar biological properties, the molecular identities of these different cardiac progenitor cell populations appear to be distinct. Elucidating the origins and lineage relationships of these...

Che H, Li G, Sun HY, Xiao GS, Wang Y, Li GR. Roles of store-operated Ca channels in regulating cell cycling and migration of human cardiac c-kit progenitor cells. Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol 309: H1772–H1781, 2015. First published October 9, 2015; doi:10.1152/ajpheart.00260.2015.—Cardiac c-kit progenitor cells are important for maintaining cardiac homeostasis and can potentially contribute ...