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Tissue stem cells and umbilical cord blood may become a future alternative to treat heart disease

Reduced ability to regenerate cardiac tissue after a stroke often leads to heart attack, but recent studies show that stem cells from umbilical cord blood and tissue may become a future alternative to treat heart disease.

Umbilical cord stem cell differentiation in myocardial cells is investigated over 5 years. Most research studies are directed to treatment of myocardial infarction in mice using CD34 (stem cells from umbilical cord blood) and mesenchymal stem cells from umbilical cord tissue. Most publications describe the transformation of stem cells from umbilical cord in cardiomyocytes, using co-cultures in specific conditions. Differentiated cells generate proteins important for cardiovascular function and inhibit the expression of factors associated with cardiac episodes. Also, cases were reported in the literature that supports the stem cells are grown on specially designed in order to create heart valves.

Generation of tissue in vitro indicate potential benefits of autologous stem cell storage of umbilical cord blood for children who were diagnosed with congenital heart defects and requiring replacement heart valves in the first years of life. It was also shown that cord blood stem cells migrate and sets in after a heart attack, getting involved in angiogenesis and tissue replacement heart.

Next we will mention, briefly, some relevant studies in the field, coming to reinforce the previously said.

- June 2008 Ρeprod Biomed Online. Placental mesenchymal stem cell therapy and cord blood for dilated cardiomyopathy. (Placenta and cord blood mesenchymal stem cell therapy for Dilated cardiomyopathy.)

Regenerative treatment of non-ischemic dilated cardiomyopathy is a significant clinical need still unfulfilled. Intracoronary administration of autologous stem cells from bone marrow showed positive results in the treatment of post-infarction patients with chronic ischemia. The limits of this procedure include invasive bone marrow extraction and cardiac catheterization and stem cell-dependent population who are elderly and possibly senescent.

In this study discusses the use of intravenous administration of allogeneic mesenchymal stem cells derived from placental matrix to treat dilated cardiomyopathy.

Safety of this cell population was also determined after completion of phase I and phase II clinical trials to date to implement this clinical condition has not been reported.

Preclinical studies have demonstrated that mesenchymal stem cells: (i) inhibit myocardial inflammation, (ii) inhibits apoptosis cardiomiocitelor, (iii) stimulate angiogenesis and (iv) shows therapeutic activity on experimental models for dilated cardiomyopathy.

The report presented here is a patient with dilated cardiomyopathy treated with intravenous administration of allogeneic mesenchymal stem cells and umbilical cord blood CD34 cells that underwent a profound clinical improvement.

- March 2008, Stem Cells Dev. Migration and differentiation of stem cells from human umbilical cord blood from the heart of infringement of chicken embryos. (Migration and differentiation of human umbilical cord stem cells after heart injury in chicken embryos.)

This study focuses on human behavior and evolution of stem cells from umbilical cord blood when implanted in the walls of normal myocardium, respectively, of the heart damaged chicken embryos.

Human stem cells from cord blood have been characterized before implantation is shown that gene expression precardiogenice. Being grafted into the heart of chicken embryos, the cells were not rejected by the host and were able to migrate through the myocardial wall.

After three days of grafting, were detected in chicken embryo heart cells with morphological characters of miocardiocite marked. After performing a small lesion in the heart wall, human stem cells from umbilical cord blood were attracted strong grafted by myocardial damage at 12 hours after damage, and this time was needed for healing damaged heart wall.

The rate of myocardial differentiation of human stem cells from umbilical cord blood in the injured hearts was not significantly increased the rate of differentiation is detected when implanted in healthy hearts.

All these findings prove that embryonic chicken heart is a feasible model for experimental stem cell therapy and emphasize the relevance of physiological condition of the host myocardial tissue for engraftment and differentiation of human stem cells from umbilical cord blood transplanted exogenous.

- August 2007, Stem Cells. 2007. Cardiomiogenic significant potential in vitro of human mesenchymal stem cells from umbilical cord blood. (The cardiomyogenic potential of human umbilical Significant cord blood-derived mesenchymal stem cells in vitro.)