objective(s):cardiomyocytes have small potentials for renovation and proliferation in adult life. the most challenging goal in the field of cardiovascular tissue engineering is the creation of an engineered heart muscle. tissue engineering with a combination of stem cells and nanofibrous scaffolds has attracted interest with regard to cardiomyocyte creation applications. human adipose-derived s...

Background: Fibronectin type III domain-containing 5 proteins (Fndc5), an exercise hormone, formerly known as peroxisomal protein that was cloned in 2002. Transcript profile analysis of Fndc5 revealed high degree of expression in heart, skeletal muscle and brain. Our recent studies indicated a significant increase (approximately 10 folds) in mRNA level of Fndc5 when mouse embryonic stem cells w...

BACKGROUND The fibroblast growth factor (FGF) family is essential to normal heart development. Yet, its contribution to cardiomyocyte differentiation from stem cells has not been systemically studied. In this study, we examined the mechanisms and characters of cardiomyocyte differentiation from FGF family protein treated embryonic stem (ES) cells and induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. METH...

Background: Stem cell therapy has been developed as an effective treatment method for the heart failure. Also, extracellular matrix has shown the positive effects in stem cell differentiation and myocardial tissue organization. Cardiogel is a native cardiac extracellular matrix (ECM) derived from cardiac fibroblasts. In the present study the role of cardiogel is examin...

Embryonic stem cells provide one potential source of cardiomyocytes for cardiac transplantation; however, after differentiation of stem cells in vitro, cardiomyocytes usually account for only a minority of cells present. To gain insights into improving cardiomyocyte development from stem cells, we examined the role of the Na(+)/H(+) exchanger isoform 1 (NHE1) in cardiomyocyte differentiation. N...

RATIONALE Recent advances have improved our ability to generate cardiomyocytes from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) and human embryonic stem cells (hESCs). However, our understanding of the transcriptional regulatory networks underlying early stages (ie, from mesoderm to cardiac mesoderm) of cardiomyocyte differentiation remains limited. OBJECTIVE To characterize transcriptome a...

Background—Embryonic stem cell (ESC)–derived cardiomyocytes are anticipated to serve as a useful source for future cell-based cardiovascular disease therapies. Research emphasis is currently focused on determining methods to direct the differentiation of ESCs to a large population of cardiomyocytes with high purity. To this aim, understanding the molecular mechanisms that control ESC-to-cardiom...

Amongst animal species, there is enormous variation in the size and complexity of the heart, ranging from the simple one-chambered heart of Ciona intestinalis to the complex four-chambered heart of lunged animals. To address possible mechanisms for the evolutionary adaptation of heart size, we studied how growth of the simple two-chambered heart in zebrafish is regulated. Our data show that the...