Access
To read this story in full you will need to login or make a payment (see right).
News and Views
Nature Medicine 13, 901 - 902 (2007)
doi:10.1038/nm0807-901
Cardiac aid to the injured but not the elderly?
Charles E Murry1
- Charles E. Murry is in the Department of Pathology, Center for Cardiovascular Biology, Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine, University of Washington, 815 Mercer St. Room 453, Seattle, Washington 98109, USA. e-mail: murry@u.washington.edu
Abstract
A genetic lineage-tracing study provides evidence that adult progenitor cells repopulate the cardiomyocyte pool in diseased hearts, but not during normal aging (pages 970–974). These stem cells could become the basis for innovative ways to treat or prevent heart failure.
Like modern-day alchemists, scientists have been searching for cell populations capable of regenerating the heart. Their search is prompted by the fact that the injured heart heals by scar formation rather than by muscle regeneration1, and this lack of regeneration is a root cause of most clinical cases of heart failure.
To read this story in full you will need to login or make a payment (see right).
MORE ARTICLES LIKE THIS
These links to content published by NPG are automatically generated.
RESEARCH
Haematopoietic stem cells do not transdifferentiate into cardiac myocytes in myocardial infarctsNature Letters to Editor (08 Apr 2004)
Cardiomyocytes derived from human embryonic stem cells in pro-survival factors enhance function of infarcted rat heartsNature Biotechnology Research (01 Sep 2007)
Evidence from a genetic fate-mapping study that stem cells refresh adult mammalian cardiomyocytes after injuryNature Medicine Letter (01 Aug 2007)
