| Issue |
Regen Med Res
Volume 2, 2014
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Article Number | 6 | |
| Number of page(s) | 6 | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1186/2050-490X-2-6 | |
| Published online | 02 April 2014 | |
Review
Heart regeneration, stem cells, and cytokines
1
Capital Medical University Affiliated Beijing Anzhen Hospital, Anzhenli, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100029, China
2
Beijing Research Institute of Heart, Lung and Vessel Diseases, Beijing 100029, China
3
The Key Laboratory of Remodeling-related Cardiovascular Diseases, Capital Medical University, Ministry of Education, Beijing, China
* Correspondence: lina82002@126.com
Received: 31 July 2013
Accepted: 24 January 2014
The human heart has limited regenerative capacity, which makes the reparative response after the cardiac infarction quite challenging. During the last decade, stem cells have become promising candidates for heart repair, owing to their potent differentiation capacity and paracrine cytokine secretion. Among the different types of stem cells, mesenchymal stem cells have high proliferative potential and secrete numerous cytokines, growth factors, and microRNAs. The paracrine cytokines play important roles in cardiac regeneration, neovascularization, anti-apoptosis, and anti-remodeling mechanisms, among others. This review summarizes the cytokines secreted by stem cells and their relative signaling pathways, which represent key mechanisms for heart regeneration and may serve as a promising future therapeutic strategy for myocardial infarction patients.
Key words: Cytokines / Heart regeneration / Stem cells / Paracrine mechanisms
© 2014 Li et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.