Mesenchymal stem cells in cardiology

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) accounts for more deaths globally than any other single disease. There are on average 1.5 million episodes of myocardial infarction (heart attack) each year in the United States alone with roughly one-third resulting in death. There is therefore a major need for developing new and effective strategies to promote cardiac repair. Intramyocardial transplantation of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) has emerged as a leading contender in the pursuit of clinical intervention and therapy. MSCs are potent mediators of cardiac repair and are therefore an attractive tool in the development of preclinical and clinical trials. MSCs are capable of secreting a large array of soluble factors, which have had demonstrated effects on pathogenic cardiac remolding, fibrosis, immune activation, and cardiac stem cell proliferation within the damaged heart. MSCs are also capable of differentiation into cardiomyocytes, endothelial cells, and vascular smooth muscle cells, although the relative contribution of trilineage differentiation and paracrine effectors on cardiac repair remains the subject of active investigation.