Cardiac regeneration: different cells same goal

Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of mortality, morbidity, hospitalization and impaired quality of life. In most, if not all, pathologic cardiac ischemia ensues triggering a succession of events leading to massive death of cardiomyocytes, fibroblast and extracellular matrix accumulation, cardiomyocyte hypertrophy which culminates in heart failure and eventually death. Though current pharmacological treatment is able to delay the succession of events and as a consequence the development of heart failure, the only currently available and effective treatment of end-stage heart failure is heart transplantation. However, donor heart availability and immunorejection upon transplantation seriously limit the applicability. Cardiac regeneration could provide a solution, making real a dream of both scientist and clinician in the previous century and ending an ongoing challenge for this century. In this review, we present a basic overview of the various cell types that have been used in both the clinical and research setting with respect to myocardial differentiation

Regenerative Medicine: Advances from Developmental to Degenerative Diseases

Chronic tissue and organ failure caused by an injury, disease, ageing or congenital defects represents some of the most complex therapeutic challenges and poses a significant financial healthcare burden. Regenerative medicine strategies aim to fulfil the unmet clinical need by restoring the normal tissue function either through stimulating the endogenous tissue repair or by using transplantation strategies to replace the missing or defective cells. Stem cells represent an essential pillar of regenerative medicine efforts as they provide a source of progenitors or differentiated cells for use in cell replacement therapies. Whilst significant leaps have been made in controlling the stem cell fates and differentiating them to cell types of interest, transitioning bespoke cellular products from an academic environment to off-the-shelf clinical treatments brings about a whole new set of challenges which encompass manufacturing, regulatory and funding issues. Notwithstanding the need to resolve such issues before cell replacement therapies can benefit global healthcare, mounting progress in the field has highlighted regenerative medicine as a realistic prospect for treating some of the previously incurable conditions

Multiparameter flow cytometry for the characterization of human embryonic stem cells

This article was accepted for publication in the journal, Biotechnology Letters [© Springer Verlag]. The journal's website is at: http://www.springerlink.com/content/0141-5492/Using multiparameter staining methods and flow cytometry to investigate the pluripotency of HUES7 human embryonic stem cell cultures, it was found that the multidimensional approach of marker co-expression allowed the different cell populations to be easily identified and demonstrated cross reactivity between the SSEA 4 and SSEA 1 antibodies, resulting in a substantial false positive SSEA 1 population. It is the accepted norm to apply control gates at a 95 % confidence level of the isotype control; however, this study found that adjusting the control gate to a 99 % confidence level significantly reduced the effect of this cross reactivity. Though conversely, this gating shift also decreased the positive marker expression of SSEA 4 and Tra-1-60, indicating that there is a need for strongly expressing markers coupled with increased optimization of fluorophore/antibody combinations before a gating strategy of 99 % can be implemented on a more routine basis