Cardiac differentiation potential of human induced pluripotent stem cells in a 3D self-assembling peptide scaffold

摘要

In the past decade, various strategies for cardiac reparative medicine involving stem cells from multiple sources have been investigated. However, the intra-cardiac implantation of cells with contractile ability may seriously disrupt the cardiac syncytium and de-synchronize cardiac rhythm. For this reason, bioactive cardiac implants, consisting of stem cells embedded in biomaterials that act like band aids, have been exploited to repair the cardiac wall after myocardial infarction. For such bioactive implants to function properly after transplantation, the choice of biomaterial is equally important as the selection of the stem cell source. While adult stem cells have shown promising results, they have various disadvantages including low proliferative potential in vitro, which make their successful usage in human transplants difficult.